I am posting this painting I’ll Fly Away / Bob Borsodi’s. Bob ran a coffee house in New Orleans. It was like a community center. We would play chess, get together for holidays and sing together. Also Bob would write, direct and perform with a cast his original plays. I am posting everyday until August 28 in remembrance of 15th Anniversary of Katrina.
Bob wrote this and had it by the front door of his coffee house. “There should be some common ground somewhere, after all, where free spirits can gather and not seem peculiar and out-of-the-way. Where any – and – everyone can share for the moment, at least, their common human experience among this welter of things here below.”
Hello, I often visited Borsodi's when I was a graduate student at Tulane in 1989-1992. I loved going there to read books and chat with Bob and Sarah. I last visited them in the spring of 1995 when they had moved from Freret to Soniat which was a smaller place but still a true haven. And then they were always so friendly. I thought about him today because right now while writing you this message I'm spending my last night in Lisbon and this afternnon I talked about Bob with Amelia a former Portuguese and Spanish visiting professor who was at Tulane just around the same time as me... We both loved Borsodi's and were so pleased to share that memory of him and his place (a true Gesamtkunstwerk). Bob died 20 years ago and both Amelia and me instantly felt real good talking about him and his amazing café....thus honoring his memory 20 years after his death.
ReplyDeleteRoland Baumann (alias Leobauman)