"You’ve probably heard the Kurt Weill-Bertolt Brecht ballad Mack the Knife before. But you haven’t heard it like this.

The signature tune from Threepenny Opera is backed by a thrumming electric guitar, and an African woman sings the German lyrics starkly, almost mournfully, like a dirge. It ain’t the usual jaunty ode to a ruthless criminal, that’s for sure.

Should I ever descend into the underworld, well, probably when I descend there, I want a chorus to welcome me with the intrigue, and vocal beauty like what is present in Baron Samedi.  Nothing else will matter after that, except perhaps my desire to interview Alain Buffard.  I need to get in your head a little please, because you certainly got into mine!
 

It’s almost been two years now since my brief encounter with Herbert Blau. I was a student of his in his last class; it was my only claim to know him besides a scattering of articles and chapters I had read. Within that 10 week class, we were meant to uncover the thread defining the lineage of the Avant-Garde. Indeed, the threads were many, and academic.

Author and cultural critic François Frimat delves into the world of Alain Buffard and Baron Samedi: