donate and celebrate

I'm not a fan of obits for people -- or worlds -- that haven't died. When it's time to rebuild, reorganize, and resurrect, a celebration goes a long way. But this month's most inadvertent New Orleans spirit machine may also be one of the year's best documentaries -- and that has nothing to do with its curious timing. In "Make It Funky," which recently opened in L.A. and will appear on VH1 soon, director Michael Murphy, who also lost his New Orleans home, celebrates, with profound humanism, the multigenre gumbo of music that made New Orleans cuture what it is. And that the film's just coming out now could be fate. See it.