In his efforts to recount the picturesque scenes and bodily sensations of Congo Square — an open space for slaves in antebellum New Orleans — author Henry Edward Durell (under the nom de plume Henry Didimus) invoked a flood of images in the preceding epigraph. Geometrical shapes meet human bodies in this descriptive whirl of music-making and dancing. The interminable, incessant sounds of drumming, singing, crying, shouting, and rhythmic pounding are conceived as a form of music that, on the face of it, has no end. Read More