What is Purgatory?
 

What is the blues?

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Both are places--interim psychological spaces--bordered by Heaven and Hell, except for one difference. Whereas Purgatory is a post-death site, the blues is here and now, in the kitchen, under the bed, down the street, at the corner, in the heart. Whether at the upper border, that is, toward Heaven, or at the lower border descending to Hell, border crossing for those consigned to Purgatory are marked by exquisite pain or extraordinary pleasure, but neither for long. Purgatory is a place for redemption, a last chance to right wrongs, to wash your linens clean. But the blues hardly dwells on such, rather, it coverts the urge for redemption into a plaintive note, or bends it into a wail, or just transforms it into funk.

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Barry Gaither