N'awlins

My Bachelor Mockingbird really needs a date!!

2008-05-31T23:56:00.000-07:00

It is 2 am. I am not asleep, I am instead listening to the cheep cheep whirrr chirrup chirrup of a mockingbird. During daylight this sounds is mystical, virtuosic and maybe even fascinating. But at 2am I feel filled with a desire to ring the neck of the little warbling bastard.

Resisting the urge to do just that, coupled with my eternal disdain for climbing trees - day or night - I resorted to google to try to find out why this little bugger is torturing me so. Google turned up trumps. I found this article explaining that my night visitor is a lonely pitiful bachelor trying with all his might (and lungs) to lure a female mockingbird to share his empty nest. I feel sad for the little fella. Yet I am wondering where the hell are all the female mockingbirds in this town? If I can't sleep through all this racket how the hell can they AND they actually have the power to shut the wee bastard up and let the rest of the world get some sleep.

Not that I wish any harm to come to him ... but where the hell are all the stray feral cats when you need them. I'd quite happily pay one to climb that feathered menace's tree right now!!!

chir chirrup cheep squeal .... can't even decide on a tune ... sheesh ... is there no end to his mockery

Weather

2008-05-06T09:33:00.000-07:00

Looking at the pics below made me think of talking to my Mum on the phone. In Britain and particularly in Scotland, there is a general preoccupation, some would say obsession, with talking about the weather. It is normal, almost expected, that somewhere in a conversation the question shall be asked 'So, what's the weather like with you today?'.

When my Mum asks me this on the phone I normally chuckle and give my rote answer - "Oh, same as yesterday, warm (or hot) and sunny". Don't get me wrong, sometimes New Orleans can have stunningly dramatic rainstorms that flood the streets, or thunder storms loud enough to wake you in the middle of the night with your heart in your mouth (and we all know about the "H" word), but generally the weather is hot & sunny.

When the weather is generally the same (and generally nice), no one really becomes obsessed with a daily discussion on the weather. But in Scotland when horizontal freezing rain can greet you outside the door for a week its no surprise that it should become a daily topic.

Oh, its warm & sunny today [again] by the way!!

N'awlins Hoosies Uptown

2008-05-05T22:08:00.001-07:00

This blog has become rather negative of late and I don't like that. New Orleans is a very challenging place to live but it still has so many wonderful unique and startling things to be grateful for. The hoosies are a good place to start.
My favourite row of hoosies (above) .... they are so cute.

I like how this hoose appears to be growing out of the swamp ....
There is a huge variety of style of N'awlins hoosies.

The gingerbread details is gorgeous.

This one may very well be my absolute favourite.

War Zone

2008-04-30T06:18:00.000-07:00

I am amazed. I live in a town where a residential street in a "good" part of town, can be a scene in a war zone with bullets flying up the street and then it is not reported the next morning!!!!! I must live in a war zone for this kind of thing not to be in the news the next day!!!!!!!!

Shooting

2008-04-29T22:50:00.000-07:00

OK, I'm still shaking. I was just going to sleep when I heard approximately 20 gunshots outside on the street!!! Yes, that's right OUTSIDE my house!!!!!! Shaking, I immediately called 911 and told the police.

My neighbors all cautiously came out onto the street to find out what was going on. One person witnessed it and said they saw two cars shooting at each other. The witness had just got home with his girlfriend and they had to hide for cover behind their SUV. The police are now there and are identifying gun casings outside on my street!!! I'd never seen a gun casing until tonight!!

I know there is too much crime in this city. I know there is no "safe area" of town. I now REALLY know it can happen anywhere, including my front porch.

I love New Orleans but with both our cars being hit by a drunk driver, two car accidents (neither my fault) in which I've been hurt and its affected my career this year, and now THIS ... I'm not sure if I can be here anymore. And I say this having lived in the ghetto in Cincinnati (opposite a crack house for a year!!). We could so easily have been walking home from the bar.

A small house in the Scottish Highlands sounds like heaven right now.

RIP Ashley

2008-04-11T11:32:00.000-07:00

I am so sad to hear of Ashley Morris's death. Ashley was one of the most colorful characters in the NOLA blogosphere and he will be sorely missed. His blog was one of my most frequent stops and I can't believe I won't be reading more of his witticisms. He was one of the larger than life New Orleans characters and this city was the richer for his presence.

I am so sad for his wife and children. I know from personal experience how hard their road is. There is a fund set up to help his family.

I am sorry I didn't get online and see the posting regarding his funeral. It is taking place as I write this. He is to have a jazz funeral procession at St Louis cemetery #3. I know that is exactly what Ashley would want.

I am so sad. I will miss you Ashley.

I had a nagging feeling

2008-03-20T14:13:00.000-07:00

I log on to the Times-Picayune website nearly every day top read local news. I have even been known to buy a copy at my local coffee shop and peruse the articles. I have never really got a grip on this paper. I know too little, I am ashamed to admit, of local politics to fully get a handle on the quality of reporting from the paper. I did not know how much I should believe of the stories of pumps being fixed, flooding levels etc. But it all seems very rosy ... perhaps too rosy.

The kicker came today. And not from the Times-Picayune. But from this article in the Guardian. It describes the demolishing of the public housing in New Orleans and the political machinations going on behind it. I have always felt uneasy about the demolitions and the claims that these housing projects would be replaced with mixed income housing (that would take a LOT of mixed income housing projects to equal all of those low income units). My uneasy-ness was not reassured by the Times-Picayune articles and even with my poor local political knowledge I sensed that the paper had a bias towards the demolition of the housing projects. Where was the investigative journalism? I sensed that many stones had been left unturned.

I am ashamed that it took an article from a British newspaper to confirm my suspicions. The Times-Picayune cannot be trusted to do the investigative journalism that the people of this city deserve and need. I was extremely pleased to read in this article that it is the NOLA bloggers that fulfill this vital need. This article quotes Dangerblonde!! Yet again survival and information are left to the people of this city to do for themselves. The professionals are incompetent, inadequate and ineffective. It really is pathetic. There are two levels to how things run in this city. One is the official level where very little gets done mixed up in mediocrity, cronyism and bureaucratic bungling. The other level is grass roots where amazing projects sprout and people with passion get things done.

This situation in this city is infuriating. Whilst the grass roots people are inspiring and I am amazed by all they accomplish, it is wrong that it should be this way. Try going to get anything official done in this town. Sure they'll be nice and call you 'baby' or 'sugar' but you'll be led on a merry dance of incompetence.

So it is not surprising that the local paper is infected with the same culture. I hope that more journalists from elsewhere come to help give us a true perspective on what is going on here. I shudder to think what the end result of demolishing these projects is going to be. I find myself in agreement with Ethan Brown in the Guardian:
"The mix of crony capitalism, tasered protesters and a complacent corporate media is sheer Shock Doctrine. " and "For New Orleanians suffering from woes ranging from a sky-high murder rate to a bulldozed public and private housing, it seems, unfortunately, that the post-Katrina tale of hardship and struggle has only just begun."

Still Here

2008-02-22T20:46:00.000-08:00

Thanks for the comments .... apologies for the absence ..... been busy with coping with the bermuda triangle of automobiles that is NOLA & Louisiana (I'm OK!! but don't like trucks in my rear view mirror much ...), entertaining my Mum & her best friend for Mardi Gras (one of the proudest moments of my life was watching my Mum chase after a float yelling for more throws!!), and working a lot ... phew ....

Have thoughts of lots of posts that have not materialized but I promise to be a more gracious host and write something worth reading soon!!!!

[Mark you have a loud knock ... :) ]

Needin' some NOLA love

2008-01-19T14:51:00.001-08:00

Things have been very rough of late and life in this parallel universe of N'awlins has been challenging. But I am alive and more importantly Mardi Gras kicks off fully this evening with Krewe du Vieux rolling in the French Quarter and Marigny. I didn't get a chance to go last year but this year I'll be there yelling my lungs out for a golden bagel and looking out for the clever satirical costumes adorning the multifarious bloggers of this community that are participating.

My camera is loaded and I'm prepared to drink rum punch to warm my cockles on this chilly night!!! So come on now NOLA, cough up some lovin' for this Scottish girl you've been battering of late!!

Pics to follow ....

NOLA's version of "EmergenC"

2008-01-05T17:58:00.000-08:00

I am sitting at home, when I should be at work. I am sitting at home in general silence. I am nursing a pair of the largest tonsils known to man (or woman). They are disgusting - covered in white gunk and making it very painful for me to coax anything by them. They are also preventing me from participating in my other hobby at which I am particularly adept at - talking!!!!

So I sit in silence nursing my tonsils, trying to forget that my head pounds every time I stand up and ponder the genesis of this sudden bout of disgusting bacterial infection. My conclusion is to blame my wonderful night in the French Quarter on New Years.

We went to Jackson Square and heard Kermit Ruffins doing his magic. It was quite brilliant until Mayor Nagin got up to count in the New Year (which he did with the help of the radio - which struck us as odd because surely the local radio should have been covering the event not the other way round). The minute Nagin appeared the once joyful crowd were silent and "lead balloon" was the phrase that kept repeating itself in my head. This being N'awlins they don't drop a ball for New Years but a "gumbo pot" with fleur di lys on the side. This also being N'awlins the pot got stuck half way down .... Once the fireworks started they played hideous band music way too loud from the speakers - one can only presume it was to please the Hawaii and Georgia football fans but it really was very uncool.

So we headed to find alcohol. This wasn't a difficult task, it was the French Quarter on New Years. I was out with all my girl friends - five in total - and they were all knocking them back. I on the other hand was not drinking, due to some problems with migraines and alcohol (no I'm not pregnant). I was worried this would hinder my enjoyment of the evening but it didn't at all and I had a brilliant time entertained by my drunk and drunker friends. We made it over to Frenchmen Street and joined the hippies that were banging on shit attached to some old guy's cart. Some guy thrust sticks into our hands and we banged a few things before the guy who "ran" the cart came and had a fit because apparently you are supposed to pay for the privilege of making "music" "banging" on shit with hippies in the French Quarter.

Our evening ended late. It was 4.30am by the time I got home having deposited the drunk and weary to their homes. (I was very glad to be sober as the drivers out at that time were very scary!!) I had a sore throat from yelling too much and went to bed. Then my sore throat developed into these gigantic tonsils!!! My friends? They are all healthy and bouncy!! My realisation - alcohol works like taking vitamin C in N'awlins and I didn't take any to kill off the bug that I got. Next year I'll know better and get someone else to drive home!!

My abusive relationship

2007-12-09T09:43:00.001-08:00

Living in NOLA is like living in an abusive addictive relationship. You have met your soul mate, the love of your life, they complete you, validate you, make you feel the thrill of what it is to be alive in their presence. The only snag is they are also an alcoholic who likes to beat you up periodically. This is what it means to live in NOLA.

We were lucky we had a long honeymoon period - about nine months. Then things started testing our relationship. We would get to the point where it felt like we couldn't take any more and wham, we were reminded of our deep love and magic was back in the air.

I feel like I now truly know what it is to be a member of this community. And I'd like to stress this has nothing what so ever to do with a certain storm. This way of existing is NOLA in all its glory, good and bad.

I love this city therefore I weather the punches and head to Frenchman to rekindle that spark, that magic that made me fall in love in the first place.

The Crypts

2007-10-21T15:11:00.000-07:00

It has taken me a little over a year to get my butt on a tour of the New Orleans crypts. They are amazing and our tour guide, Lloyd, was fantastic. I took an obscene number of photos and was missing having my canon EOS 500 - I SO want a digital one. But my little cheapo olympus still took some nice shots. I love the iron work, the crosses, the gothic romance of it all. I also love how it looks like downtown grows out of the crypts.

What has happened to me???

2007-10-12T05:39:00.000-07:00

I'm Scottish. I have braved so many cold, no freezing, mornings I can't count them. I have grown up being taken on a brisk, no freezing, walk on Christmas day each and every year. I am an expert at focusing on my tummy warmth so I don't notice that my hands feel like they've got frostbite.

This morning I woke in New Orleans in our little rented half shotgun and I was cold, shivering, complaining. I woke demanding that we sleep with more blankets. I hurriedly dressed and put on my teddy bear fleece - it looks like the fur from a blond teddy bear.

The temperature in our little shotgun was 70 degrees (that's 21 degrees Celsius) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What has happened to me? Have I lost all my training from growing up in Scotland. Am I turning into a woos?

I am now quaking in fear for when the temperature drops to a spine chilling 40 degrees (4 degrees Celsius) this Winter. How will I ever make it through ..... ?????

DIG IT UP!!!!

2007-09-25T12:46:00.001-07:00

The Saints are 0-3!! We got whooped again last night and it was a depressing thing to witness. I'd like to stress I am no fair weather fan and I'll stick by them but its a rough task right now. It feels like watching Scotland play England at rugby only every week...!!!

I don't know what has happened to Brees or MacAllister or Bush. This was a team that was number one for offense in the entire NFL last year - this year we are more than likely last!!

The team held a jazz funeral and buried all their awards and trophies from last season to help them have a fresh start for 07/08. It obviously was a very bad idea. They buried their ability to play football with it!!!

So my plea for myself and all those amazing Who Dat fans, is pleeeeeease dig the coffin up!!!!! Its only in Metairie - I'll go and do it for them if they want. Only do something to change the gris-gris before we rename the Superdome Superdepressing!!!

And this just makes things even more gloomy.

My New House Guard

2007-09-22T09:50:00.000-07:00

Just goes to show in this town, you can never be sure what will greet you when you get home. I am just recovering from chasing this little fella all around my front door to a position where I could actually be brave enough to unlock my door. I then summoned all my courage and opened the door and went inside only to find that he'd scarpered - and of course my subsequent fear was 'oh shit he's in the house'!!

Luckily he'd hopped the other direction... whew!! I had a tense few hours when we were in Miami chasing a tiny lizard (perhaps salamander - but it was green??) round our tiny studio apartment and I didn't fancy doing the same with a New Orleans tree frog!!

I don't do well with creepy crawlies or amphibians....
and I live where...????
I must be crazy - or just brave!!!

Magazine on a beautiful Saturday

2007-09-15T10:24:00.001-07:00

the street names are tiled into the pavement in Uptown - some are sadly broken but I was psyched to find this one
Geaux Saints!!!!! (this town will turn anyone into a Saints fan - and I mean anyone - one of my friends just moved here and hates football - half a Saints game and she's hooked!!!!)
great second hand clothes shop - with fantastically coloured crazy wigs!
Balcony Bar - great vantage point to watch the antics of St Patrick's day parade - and to drink lots of beer with friends!!
my favourite coffee shop!!
great diner!!
great seafood
still can't get used to living somewhere that has banana trees - crazy!!!
the oaks that line most avenues in uptown are fantastic - they are almost beast-like
my favourite wee row of houses on Louisiana
water meter cover - they are a symbol for New Orleans

Freret Market: reminds me why I love this town.

2007-09-08T13:29:00.000-07:00

I was tootling around uptown running errands when I was blessed with a New Orleans moment. I was driving down Freret Street and stumbled upon the opening day of the new Freret Market in Uptown - admittedly had I been reading the TP more avidly I would likely have picked up on it sooner.

There were art stalls, fresh shrimp stalls, jewellery stalls, second hand clothes stalls, food stalls (Dunbars!!!) and even a fortune reader. This being New Orleans, right in the midst of it all was a brass band playing their hearts out and the best thing was they were all young men - perhaps signalling that the passing of the brass band tradition is still alive and well in this town (they sounded good!!).

In spite of the heat (I'm a northern European girl after all!!), I went away with a smile and relieved to see another positive thing taking place in this town amongst all that is still in disarray.

And we thought Katrina was bad....they tried to nuke us!

2007-09-06T11:08:00.000-07:00

Just saw this story in the Guardian. Apparently the Pentagon really dropped the ball on this one but luckily for us didn't drop anything else!!! Someone accidentally (apparently) fixed nuclear warheads to the wings of a B-52 bomber and flew it from the Canadian border to Southern Louisiana!!

So the Federal flood was not enough - they wanted to finish the job in a big way......

Would someone please rescue us from this insanity and incompetence - maybe we need to be invaded and under go "regime change" - pleeease - we'll come into the streets cheering and meet the invading army with flowers (as long as they agree not to nuke us!!!).

Two Year Anniversary of Katrina

2007-08-29T07:09:00.000-07:00

This is one of the public housing "ghettos" that I pass almost on a daily basis and every time it makes me reflect. It reminds me of the empty Warsaw ghettos from the 1940s. It makes me question what the observers of those ghettos thought about where its previous inhabitants had gone.

The inhabitants of this ghetto have not been sent to such a horrific fate but they have still been shipped away. When I talked to a NOPD cop a few months back he said that when the army was brought in, the way they treated people reminded him of Poland in the 1940s.

This ghetto reminds me that there are 90,000 New Orleanians now resident in Houston. This ghetto reminds me that there are people who called this place home for generations and had never left it until Katrina forced them out. I look at the empty gaping windows and wonder who lived there and what they brought to the city they belonged to. There were no doubt criminals and drug lords in this ghetto and whether it was a pleasant or unpleasant place to live is a whole other discussion on American public housing, but there must have been plenty of people who were not those things, who were trying to scrape by, trying to make ends meet anyway they could. There must have been some people who helped create the chants of the Mardi Gras Indians, who encouraged their kids to learn the brass band music of generations and who cooked red beans and rice on a Monday. Where are these New Orleanians now and how to they feel today?

I always wonder how these people coped after what happened to them at the superdome and the convention center. I wonder what they thought as they couldn't get out and faced surviving that huge storm. These are the people this country abandoned, the people who were not important enough to get water to in five days. I always wonder if these people have been offered the chance to return home to this city or not. I wonder if their hearts have been broken living in the total other universe outside of New Orleans.

WEDNESDAY

2007-08-27T11:25:00.000-07:00

This Wednesday is the 2nd year anniversary of Katrina. I hope the world takes time to reflect on what happened, is happening and has still to happen here.

I will be posting a series of photos that say something of what is missing here.

Meanwhile please read the Time articles here.

Bush Go Home You are NOT Welcome!!

2007-08-27T11:23:00.000-07:00

Bush is going to dare to come to New Orleans this Wednesday on the 2nd anniversary of the federal flood and failure of Katrina. How DARE he!!! I hope everyone turns their back on this man. He disgusts me.

Go to Rising Tide 2!!!!!!

2007-08-24T12:06:00.000-07:00

I wish I could but I have work..... so if you are in New Orleans this weekend and not working you should go in my sted - go to Rising Tide 2 and find out what is really going on with the rebuilding of this unique city!!!

Pump Engineer

2007-08-20T07:38:00.000-07:00

I had an unusual encounter yesterday. I met two engineers who designed the pumps that are installed in New Orleans to help prevent another federal flood. They were in the grocery store picking up some cheese cake for the hungry workers testing the pumps.

One of the men was the actual engineer who designed the pumps. He described them as "his" pumps. Having read so much about failing pumps and the city (or state or feds - can't remember who, so don't quote me!) buying faulty pumps from a dodgy Bush family connection in Florida, I took the opportunity to ask these gentlemen some questions. I asked about the dodgy pumps and I touched a nerve. The primary engineer told me that those pumps were agricultural pumps, for farmers and never designed to be relied upon (a farmer with a broken pump can wait a day to get it fixed but not a city in the midst of a hurricane!!). He was quite angry about it - which pleased me!! He then told me that his pumps could pump over a million gallons of water in a minute!!! I thought that sounded very impressive.

I am not mechanically minded and explanations of the kind normally tie my little brain in knots. However from what he was explaining, the engineers have designed the flood walls and pumps in such a way that should a storm surge happen (perish the thought...) then they can ensure that the volume of water in the canals can be controlled and prevent pressure building up on the canal flood walls. The result should be that a flood wall should never break under too much pressure as it did in Katrina. I hope this engineer is right. I need him to be right. This city needs him to be right. He was a really nice guy and extremely proud of his job and his pumps. It made me feel a little safer having met him.

The Hurricane Made me into a Bad Person!!

2007-08-20T07:33:00.000-07:00

Dean is looking like he wants some serious shots of Tequila in Mexico and will leave Louisiana and Texas alone. Good news for us but bad news for Mexico. One of the most disturbing things about hurricanes and living with the threat of one, is that as soon as one pops up you wish it to go anywhere but where you are. So I find myself wishing harm on my friends (one of my best friends lives in Corpus Christi, Texas) and other human beings (Mexico). I don't like the fact that hurricane season turns me into a less caring individual.....

Guuuuuuuuuulllp...........

2007-08-15T18:40:00.000-07:00

Dean is lurking hoping to be classified a grown up hurricane tomorrow. His timing is close to that baytch storm that caused the federal flood. New Orleans in her fragile recovery lie uncertain in the cone of predictions.

I would be lying if I said I wasn't worried. I would be lying if I didn't say that most of the people in this city are worried. Not that everyone is talking about it. Its eerily quiet. I think we all hope Dean will just go on his merry way to somewhere else. Just the thought of a hurricane is difficult in this city. I am Scottish and have no hurricane experience but considering our over preparations for Ernesto last year, have no fear we will be high tailing it out of here. I have read enough about the state of the levees and the failures of the feds to help secure our safety. I cannot bring myself to think too much about it, let alone blog about it. But rest assured our fear is warranted.

Its scary because I love this place. Our lives are beginning to go well. Its like when you send a loved one off on a journey you pray that no harm comes to them and they arrive back to you in one piece. I am praying right now that New Orleans journey with Dean is a safe one, hopefully observing from the sidelines. God Bless New Orleans!!

Pontchartrain Winery

2007-08-06T10:25:00.001-07:00

Dazza and I took a trip to the Pontchartrain winery in Tammany Parish last week. We spent a good four hours there talking to John, the owner and wine grower, and, of course, sampling wine! You may think, like I did, that wine made in Louisiana cannot possibly be good. I was wrong!! The wine is actually really good. John makes it with a lot of passion and care, and he truly loves his product.

My favourites were the whites - Le Trolley (made from Blanc du Bois grapes and crisp and dry - very nice), Roux Saint Louis (made from the same grapes but stopped in the fermentation process to preserve some sweetness - it is sweeter that the Trolley but not too sweet - perfect to go with strawberries on a picnic!) and Louis D'Or (a woody white with Voignier grapes and Blanc du Bois - it was quite a shock after the other two but after a couple of sips it was quite addictive - unusual woody nutty taste that was crying out for some chicken etouffe).

Before the reds was a rose called "Zydeco Rosato" which was the most unusual colour - salmon pink. It is about as far away from a Zinfandel as possible (thank goodness) and was a real blend of the red and white grapes. It was on the dry side and I think was asking for a little spicy cajun food to accompany it.
His red that he makes from his own grapes (he grows only two - the Blanc du Bois and a red Norton - the Norton was damaged by Katrina - he hopes next year to get a harvest he can use) is made into "Rouge Militaire". The one we tried was the 2002 vintage and it was one of the most unusual wines I've ever tried. It had a nose that promised that it was port in the glass not wine but the wine, although with a lot of port qualities, was not port. It is a dry earthy, nutty flavour that doesn't apologise for its ruggedness. It take a few sips to get into it and understand its complexities but we came to love it (hence taking a bottle home). John said he had a girl come up to him at a tasting and tell him that she loved this wine because it reminded her so much of growing up in Louisiana. This is what John is passionate about, creating wines that reflect the region in Louisiana.

The other reds he has he makes from grapes that he buys from California. They are 'Le Grand Louis' a syrah and his cabernet sauvignon 'Criolla Rosso'. We also tried his port which is a real treat and its called 'Port of New Orleans'!!!

We had a great day, learnt lots, and I truly hope that John's little winery continues to grow and develop because they are producing good quality, original wines that are well worth drinking. I would highly recommend a trip up to see the place and taste the wine.

Things you see on the way home....

2007-08-06T10:23:00.001-07:00

The Swamp Takeover

2007-08-02T08:09:00.001-07:00

This is New Orleans. This is a swampy place. This is a place that, it could be argued , they should have thought twice about creating in this location. Not because of sea levels of the above and below variety, not because of the odd hurricane that whips through from time to time but just because the swamp will never agree to lie down and die.

Everything grows and grows and grows here, whether you want it to or not. The vegetation is one step beyond "luscious" to ferocious! The sidewalks are forever being reshaped into mountainous terrain by the large Oaks. The pavement sprouts weeds from concrete. The road develops more and more potholes and sinkholes overnight as the swamp continues its insurgency against us humans trying to live in its domain.

The pinnacle of this enterprise I found was when we lifted the blind in the back room of our half double shotgun (its OK we rent it!) and found that now the swamp and its vegetation are on the offensive and are determined to devour us in our sleep. I think we are at serious risk of having our own private little shop of horrors!!

Absence makes the heart grow fonder (or the blog grow duller)

2007-07-31T18:08:00.000-07:00

No, I haven't been away on exotic travels. No, I haven't even really been having much fun to be honest. So ... hence my absence from the blogs of late. I've been feeling considerably uninspired. And I have to admit to having been wasting a great deal of time catching up with long lost dear friends on that newfangled thing 'facebook'.

But I've been looking at my stats and I feel a twinge of guilt that people still visit though there is no one here to offer them the hospitality of a good read and sometimes funny story of NOLA goings on.

So here are some photos of Dazza and I's trip south of N'awlins - we drove 75 miles south to the gulf hoping to stumble upon some rural gem of a town but instead found what we suspected, a drawn out Katrina disaster tour. Hardly a house was to be found. All there was were foundations with Fema trailers where small towns and villages once were. It was sad. So much so I couldn't bring my self to take photos (I have an idea that I've got for a collection of photos I'm going to post on this subject nearer the 2 year anniversary of Katrina).

The landscape was rural marsh and swamp that gradually gave itself over to more and more water. We never "arrived" at the Gulf - and the road got smaller and smaller passing oil industrial plants (and "Halliburton Road"!!!) that we eventually turned around and came home. But we first stopped in Venice (nicknamed 'the end of the world') for some fresh Gulf shrimp from a Vietnamese woman who had hundreds of chickens outside (I guess her family were likely bored with seafood!). The shrimp were huge and gorgeous and scrummy with garlic and white wine. We also stopped at a small roadside market and got HOT pickles and pepper jelly. So the trip was not wasted.

This is my favourite thing!!

2007-07-13T09:04:00.000-07:00

Found a new N'awlins blog with brilliant lyrics for "These are a few of my favourite things" New Orleans styleee!!!!

NOLA and Glesga Humour!

2007-07-03T08:54:00.000-07:00

I've just read an interesting wee post on longayelander's blog about how my fellow Scots are doing what they always do when faced with a frightening situation - they laugh about it!!

There is a true William Wallace in the midst of Glasgow (that's GlasGO) and his name is John Smeaton. He ruled the airwaves of the British media bringing the big lovely rolled up vowels of the Glaswedgian working class to the confusion of anyone outside of Govan. His heroism has been told and retold - how it was 'ah good job ah wis there' - to knock one of the men from the Jeep to the ground to let the 'polis' arrest him. It has inspired a website where people have bought him 1,000 pints to say thank you! There you can witness the youtube videos of this great man of Glesga patter!

My favourite quote (same as Katie's) on the website is the following:

"Those hapless al-Qaeda boys were to find out that Glasgow has no respect for international terrorism. Nobody gets between 10,000 Weegies and a £99 week in Ibiza booked on Thursday night through Barrhead Travel.

And most of all, no-one messes with The Polis. Not in this town."

It all feels very similar to NOLA. The satirical costumes of mardi gras, the New Orleans satirical paper "The New Orleans Levee" subtitled 'we don't hold anything back'. The bloggers' biting wit.

Maybe this is why I feel at home here. Whilst the rest of America quakes in fear of this war on terror, N'awlins laughs at the ridiculousness and tries to find humour in the sorry state of affairs that is post-K NOLA, so that humour can carry us to another day.

The Wicked Witch of the West & the Truck Tornado

2007-07-02T08:52:00.000-07:00

New Orleans is a magical place. I have said this before and I'm saying it again. Now just because it is magical it does not follow that that magic is always necessarily a good thing or a pleasurable experience.

I have one such magical tale to tell.

When I got home one evening last week, I parked my car and got out. When I looked down there I saw a pair of shoes. They were set out as if their occupant had either vanished or had laid them in the bottom of their closet. They were black slingbacks. They may have caused their owner some pain and thus had been discarded on the walk back home. Their placement on the side of the road, beside the trash can, was definitely a mystery.

These shoes reminded me of the Wizard of Oz. Every time I looked at them I heard the high pitched shrieks of "I'm melting, I'm melting!". I rushed indoors to get my camera to capture them.

Jump forward in time.
2.30 am.

BOOM, CRASH!!

What sounded like a bolt of lightening hitting the ground outside our front door, woke me abruptly from my sleep. Then, as if to ensure that I was in fact awake, a car alarm went off. This is the normal progression of most thunder claps in the middle of the night in New Orleans. Only this time there was no sound of rain and no subsequent claps of thunder were heard.

Dazza and I stumbled to the door to peek out. When we looked our cars had moved. Oh no!!

We grabbed some clothes and stumbled into the night, cautiously, not wanting to get caught up in any nasty incident.

We found that our big station wagon Passat had been shunted about 8 feet into our teeny weeny little Honda Fit. There was debris on the ground from what looked like a red vehicle but there was no vehicle to be found.

We did find our neighbors also wandering around trying to decipher the loud noise that woke them and how many of their cars had also been hit by this mystery vehicle.

Our big fear was that they had gone. Vanished like a tornado leaving us to pick up the pieces of their pandemonium.

But out of the darkness our neighbors at the end of the block started yelling out to us. A woman had seen the whole thing from her porch as she waited for her husband to get home from his late shift. And she told us that the two guys wandering around at the end of the adjacent street were the cause of our tornado and that the pick up truck they had been driving was parked the wrong way on a one way street.

The cops turned up and arrested the drunk (very) driver and his passenger. To our amazement (at their drunken stupidity) we had the name of the driver and he had insurance!! The cops were very professional and nice. And we were all thankful no one was hurt.

But what about the shoes and their melted occupant. We all discussed their presence (I was not the only one to have notice them) and now absence. We all assumed they must be underneath our little Fit, squished by its little tyres. But when the next day we moved the cars, poof .... they were nowhere to be seen ......

Cajun Haggis!!!!!

2007-06-13T12:22:00.000-07:00

We've just been to Ignatius for lunch. It is a wonderful 'french' feeling cafe on Magazine Street and is run by the same folks as Rue de la Course - my favourite coffee shop!! The food is great - all the New Orleans traditionals - jambalaya, shrimp creole, po' boys, muffulatas, red beans and rice with sausage, etouffee, gumbo.

Today as an appetizer, we had "boudin" for the first time. It is Cajun Haggis - looks like a sausage but you cut into it and it oozes its innards just like haggis (pictured below). It is made from lots of things I've been told but the kind we had was pork based. The other difference is it is made with rice instead of oats, so this means its gluten free!!!! which, as I'm allergic to gluten, is fantastic!!!

Dazza loved the boudin as did I and was waxing lyrical about his first taste of Haggis, Neeps and Tatties in Scotland. The best unique meal he says he's ever had. He did say that the haggis grossed him out before he tried it!! Dazza had a juicy half roast beef po' boy and crawfish and corn chowder. I had a big house salad (their salads are amazing too - they do a muffalata salad - everything from a muffulata but on salad instead of bread - again gluten free!!!). We both polished off our lunch with some Rue de la Course coffee!

From some mild eavesdropping, I love how in this town people have long and rich conversations all about food!! Its good to be home!

Our Botanical Welcome Home

2007-06-13T09:04:00.000-07:00

We know what it means to miss New Orleans!!

2007-06-11T09:40:00.000-07:00

We left N'awlins to go up North (well its pretty hard to go South...) for a couple of days. We left on Thursday and came home last night. It felt like months!! And we definitely felt like we needed a passport - everywhere else is nothing like this place. And we arrived home very tired after 13 hours in the car but very very happy to be home!!

We were welcomed home by some amazing blooming activity on the trees - I will get the camera out and divulge pics soon. I have pics of our trip too and lots to witter on about. Don't know if it fits in this blog category or my other. But either way watch this space for more very soon.....

ps the phrase" Do you know what it means, to miss New Orleans?" always makes me think of New Orleans as a beautiful (if old and party-worn) southern belle (Miss New Orleans).

Gwen

2007-05-31T14:40:00.000-07:00

the tag thing is on my other blog

The Blame Game

2007-05-31T12:02:00.000-07:00

Wow. I'm quite amazed by Nagin. He's got quite the brass neck.

He's got all the good sound bites. He's got all the answers: its their fault. He blamed the Feds for not coughing up the dough that NOLA was promised by that blithering idiot in Jackson Square in Sept 2005. He blames the State for having a juicy surplus whilst things are still so very much broken in NOLA. But Nagin, aah Nagin!! He's cleaned up the French Quarter to the point that eating the vomit on Bourbon Street doesn't sound so unappetizing... :)

I always feel with Nagin that he wants to be the cool kid that everyone likes. He wants to be on our side. He wants to forget that he is on the side of local government whether he likes it or not and that with that comes the responsibility to actually do something about our problems not complain about them and blame everyone else. In my humble opinion if he blames Bush and Bianco for the lack of cash and (therefore) progress in New Orleans he should have been banging down their doors, screaming blue murder in the halls of Congress and running naked across the White House lawn to get their attention.

Had he done all that then I wouldn't mind hearing him bitch....

The end of his speech I found very interesting and if anyone can help on any of this please do:

In closing, as I stated earlier we as a city are determined to have a full recovery.

[Great!!]

We have the vision.

[What is it?]

We have the plan.

[I don't know it]

We made the tough decisions to position us for a full recovery.

[They were...?]

We have chosen life over death.

[well some of us have been able to.....]

We will rebuild.

[with or without your help....]

One New Orleans, one Louisiana.

[who's he kidding? the rest of Louisiana is so unbelievable redneck that when I get too far along I-10 I want to do a screeching U-turn and head home ASAP]

I get wet, I get dry

2007-05-27T16:00:00.000-07:00

I've been neglecting my blogs recently - I've thought of posts, not got round to posting them or quite simply just felt blah.... I'm sure its just my adjustment to my summer....

Anyway....

I've just been to my local (and favourite) coffee shop, Rue De La Course on Magazine St and devoured the Sunday Times Picayune and the Sunday NY Times. Lots of fodder for my grey matter (and future posts..). However I do miss the Observer and Scotland on Sunday - reading them online just isn't the same and the chances of me smearing my forehead with newsprint ink is far less likely. I love having a Sunday to commune with newspapers. I firmly believe that was what God truly intended "His" day for!!

I was walking home along Magazine when it began to drizzle. I thought about how rare it seems in N'awlins to find drizzle, that widely loved and hated Scottish phenomenon. N'awlins Fog there is plenty of - particularly in the Autumn and "Winter". But drizzle, no. And I thought that, other than my newspapers getting a little soggy, how nice it was to walk in warm drizzle.

It made me think of Stefan, one of my parents' friends from Belgium. We went on holiday as a family to Brussels to see Stefan when I was about ten. I remember we went for a walk in the woods and it began to rain. My Mum quickly got out our waterproofs and kitted us out. But Stefan just stood there in his shorts and T-shirt in the rain getting wet. My sister, brother and I used to the bone-chilling aspect of Scottish rain, were shocked. "You'll get wet!!" we cried. "I'll get dry again!" Stefan replied.

So I was walking in the spirit of Stefan when N'awlins decided to defy me and show how rare indeed the event of N'awlins drizzle is, and really rain. Luckily I was spared the usual downpour - when the heavens open and God dumps his bath water on your head! But my newspapers are decidedly soggy!!

Post-Traumatic-Stress in Post-Katrina New Orleans

2007-05-14T04:38:00.000-07:00

A very good friend of mine from the BBC sent me an email this morning. In it is details of a paper “Prevalence of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Following Hurricane Katrina” by Lisa D. Mills MD and Trevor J. Mills MD. This paper will be presented at the 2007 SAEM ( Society for Academic Emergency Medicine) Annual Meeting, May 16-19, 2007, Chicago, IL on Friday, May 18th, in the Psychiatry poster session beginning at 9:00 AM in the River Exhibition Hall A & B of the Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers.

This paper is to report that Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is ten times the national average in New Orleans. 38% of people who have visited the Emergency rooms in New Orleans exhibit signs of PTSD compared with 3.6% for the national average. Dr. Peter DeBlieux, MD,
Director of Emergency Services at Louisiana State University in New Orleans was asked about this study and commented:
“The incidence of PTSD in our population post-Katrina reported in this research study is noteworthy and worth following as recovery efforts move forward. The prevalence cited in this study is not alarming to those professionals caring for patients who have been traumatized by the storm and challenged by the recovery efforts.”

This should come as "news" to no one. Katrina turned this city into a war zone and most people involved in war suffer PTSD. Big parts of this city still look like a war zone. I drive up Louisiana Avenue to Clairborne to get onto I-10 and every time I do I look at the huge housing project on the right hand side. It is empty and abandoned after Katrina. The windows are cracked, the roof starting to crumble and it is quite eerie. It always reminds me of photos of war torn Germany during the 1940s. That's what Katrina did. She left big swathes of this city war torn.

I don't know if this paper will include this - although I hope it does - but I look at that housing project and the size of it and its emptiness and I wonder where all those people ended up. The PTSD in this city is 38% but what about all those other souls spread throughout the US? They surely also have PTSD. But being the poorest in society are they getting adequate care? Being the poorest in society they were the ones who didn't leave. They are the ones that really experienced the war zone and all its wrath.

The magnitude of loss here is staggering. It is present on a continuum from the smallest possession to loss of a loved one. As part of the story in my friend's email stated:
"The magnitude and duration of even a single mental health care diagnosis after this disaster demonstrates the need for long term, coordinated mental health response as part of disaster relief. Interim or temporary mental health response is not adequate for this population."

The scars from this disaster run deep. The rate of suicide is up. The number of people who are dying from stress is up. This city needs to be rebuilt but not just physically. Souls are hurt and they should be cared for and helped to heal as best they can.

Beyond Bach around the Clock

2007-05-13T10:05:00.000-07:00

I've just read a side splitter about my old friend JS Bach (the slut!). It gives a whole new dimension to "Bach around the clock"!!

Why Why Why? I am so ANGRY and SAD!!!!

2007-05-08T18:51:00.000-07:00

Why oh WHY should I be reading a story - no a HEADLINE STORY - in the Time Picayune that tells me that the corps of engineers have NOT DONE their JOB!!!!

Apparently they have NOT fixed the levees to pre-Katrina level. Apparently they most certainly have NOT improved the levees to withstand another Katrina. A small hurricane could flood this city again. Maybe they don't think that is such a big deal. Maybe they didn't see Mardi Gras, Jazz Fest or the likes. Maybe they have no appreciation for beautiful architecture in the French Quarter. Maybe they are tone-deaf and hate the music pouring out of the bars every night on Frenchman Street. Maybe they prefer peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to jambalaya, fried oysters and crawfish boils (I could go on).

WHAT have they been doing? WHO dropped the ball? WHO watched them drop the ball or MISSED them dropping the ball?

SOMEONE (W?) somewhere let us down REALLY bad this time!! Does no one KNOW what it means to CARE for New Orleans?

I am SO depressed. I knew when I moved here and got a job here that everything was too magical, too special to be for real. If this nightmare comes true this summer we will not live here, and I will be out of a job. Done. End of it.

If I had a mic you could hear me SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAM!!

A Katrina Cop's Story

2007-05-06T09:58:00.000-07:00

I have just read a moving and heart breaking story about one Katrina survivor on Tim's blog. I urge you to read it.

There are so many stories here and they generally vary only in the degree that your heart breaks for the main protagonist. I spoke to a NOLA cop the other week who told me some of his experience in Katrina. He joined the force two weeks before the storm!!

There was no evacuating for him. As he said, as a cop his job is to go towards the danger not away. He said before the storm hit he cleaned his house from top to bottom. Yes that's right cleaned it. He filled his tub with water, left a big bowl of dog food for his dog and, rather crazily, drove through the storm to work in Uptown. He said they kept seeing great big pieces of metal slicing up the streets and they wondered where they were coming from until someone reported seeing the copper on one of the church steeples was being peeled off and hurled by the storm.

This man grew up in one of the projects as one of twelve kids with a single Mom. He grew up dirt poor, as so many have, and got himself out of the ghetto and bought a house. That house was flooded with the ugly waters from the lake and his precious dog perished. He had to explain to his elderly Mother why she couldn't go home and find a way of storing her precious possessions. He was lucky, the rest of his family had evacuated.

But his job meant that he witnessed the chaos, the suffering of the people he had grown up with and lived alongside all his life. He said that when FEMA was claiming they knew nothing about people at the convention center they were rescuing people and taking them there - on orders. The police had to commandeer any vehicle they could. He said the ones that worked the best were school buses - apparently they are easy to hot-wire!!

I told him that one of my colleagues had a mini-van with about 250,000 miles on it that was commandeered by the cops. Painted on the side was a huge Saints fluer de lis. My colleague saw his van on the TV footage and was proud that it was doing something to help someone somewhere in this city.

The cop told me that for days they went on like this - commandeering a vehicle and using it until it ran out of gas. It wasn't until the army arrived that there were supplies of gasoline for the vehicles and boats.

He said that the people at the convention center were huddled in the heat by the thousands. I learnt when I first saw the convention center here, that the national TV footage did no justice to the sheer numbers of people on the street out side it. The convention center is huge and goes on and on like a snake along the river. The cop told me he saw people inside the huge halls, outside on the sidewalk, camped out on the neutral ground (NOLA term for grass median) and on the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street.

He said that he had mixed feelings about what happened once the army arrived. Whilst they definitely needed structure and action they also needed sympathy and empathy. He said he saw the army dividing the men from the women and children, splitting up families and then herding them onto buses. He said it left him feeling very unsettled because he saw people being treated like a problem that had to be fixed, treated as if they had no humanity left. He said he never thought he would see scenes in New Orleans, his home, that would remind him of films he's seen of Germany during the 1930s and 40s.

He told me an interesting fact from New Orleans' history. He said that New Orleans traditionally should have very little violence. The tradition was that if two men had a problem to resolve they would fight hand to hand. To use any form of weapon was regarded as cowardice. Guns, he said, should not in New Orleans tradition even be in this city. But they are. He said that it was people from outwith the city that brought guns and their ensuing violence. He said as a New Orleanian it makes him very sad.

It also was a reality the cops had to face once the city was emptied. There were some people who managed to evade the mandatory evacuation of the city and they were generally armed and holed up in small pockets throughout the wreckage of New Orleans. He told me it was a situation he hopes never to experience again.

I think what the emergency personnel did during Katrina was astounding. During 911 the firefighters, and police were heroic, running towards the danger. In Katrina all those personnel were a part of the tragedy - they were already in the danger. They lost their communities, their homes, their pets and some, their loved ones. The cop didn't get back to see his house and confirm his suspicions of the level of devastation until fifteen days after the flood.

He said he didn't blame any of the cops that abandoned their posts. It was too terrible an experience and as he said, some people are just not equipped to handle such a situation. He also, sadly, told me that he doesn't know how long it will take him to recover mentally or even if he ever will.

The irony for him was that he had been discussing with his wife only the week before the storm that he wanted to raise his house at least six feet. He acknowledged that that wouldn't have saved his dog but it was pretty eerie that he somehow knew something of what was coming, even if only subconsciously.

Water Water Everywhere

2007-05-04T13:52:00.000-07:00

New Orleans is flooded again. But not from any hurricane. From those storms I posted about earlier and the ones I heard this afternoon. There were flood warnings out for part of the city that are vulnerable. De Gaulle on the West Bank is flooded, parts of St Charles, a section of Tchoupitoulas, and various other locations have people stranded at work trying to get home and school kids at school waiting to be picked up. You can read about it in the Times Picayune.

They are also reporting that the Corps of Engineers have asked the pumping station at London Avenue be shut down because the water level was too high in the canal and they want to protect the walls of the canal. The pumping stations are supposed to be for this very scenario (not hurricanes - or rather "federal floods"). N'awlins very often floods in heavy rains (an' you ain't seen heavy rain till you've seen Looeseana rain!!).

There has been flurry of NOLA bloggers giving advice for folks trapped at work. In fact just now they are reporting that the water in Uptown is receding fast - but that the low lying areas downtown are "seriously soggy"!!

Stormy Weather

2007-05-04T10:31:00.000-07:00

At 2.44 am I was woken with a jolt - a jolt of lightning. There was a terrific bang and my heart leaped trying to escape my petrified chest. Then there was another and a disgruntled animal growled loudly in the distance. The growling and the flashing got more intense until our ears were whipped by a clap of rage. Sleep was impossible with such a battle going on in the dark of night. Nature asserted her superior place and I curled up and closed my eyes waiting for the battle to end.

I have seen and heard some astounding storms in the US. Once in Aspen, Colorado, I was shaken along with the building I was in, when a bolt hit just outside the door. In Cleveland there was a freakish storm that literally rolled in. There was this huge black/green cloud that rolled over the horizon like a wave and engulfed the city in a firestorm of flashes, clashes and splashes. When Dazza and I were moving to Miami we drove from Atlanta to Savannah and went through a series of storms that seemed never ending. We got the fright of our lives when a bolt hit the median just as we were passing with the windscreen wipers on full pelt and rain thrashing out any vision of the road ahead. We saw electric storms with no rain driving through 115 degree heat in the Utah desert.

But last night was the loudest, most ferocious I have ever experienced. The clouds must have been low and the Gods very angry. I generally love listening to storms - probably because we'd hardly ever have any in Scotland - but last night I have to admit they had me a little spooked.

No we are NOT OK - and Boston knows it!

2007-05-02T14:19:00.000-07:00

I have just seen a very very interesting article on Ashley's blog. It is an article written by a woman from Boston about New Orleans and the lack of progress here. It is worth taking the time to read - it is a view from outside and gives an impression to those of you who don't live here but saw all that TV footage, of what it really is like here in what a lot of NOLA bloggers have started to "affectionately" call Debrisville!!!

So please go here to the Boston Globe article and get angry, get understanding of why the people in New Orleans feel abandoned by their country and are still saying NO we are not OK!!

Magic Realism

2007-04-30T15:33:00.000-07:00

I've been busy this week with work and hanging out - a most involved N'awlins pastime. My sister-in-law, Jen was in town for a few days. Thursday night we went to Micks, an Irish bar in Mid-city, and played ping pong and poker. Friday we went to Fat Harry's to hear James Rivers play funk bagpipes again. Saturday I was working but Dazza and Jen walked to the Quarter and had Coops fabulous Jambalaya and sampled the various musical offerings on Frenchman street.

The best night was last night. Jen and I had spent the day wandering Magazine street in the sunshine. There aren't many places open on a Sunday in this town being predominantly Roman Catholic. But we found a great place for salads - Ignatius. I had a muffuletta salad - the filling from the traditional N'awlins muffuletta sandwich but on salad. We polished off a half bottle of white wine and wandered home.

Once Dazza got home from work we went to the Quarter, to Frenchman to hear Dave Anderson and Dave Easely at The Spotted Cat. I had an interesting encounter with "Dr Love", an old African-American gentleman adorned with pens, wrist watches, a stethoscope and a big multicoloured straw hat. He was missing more than a few teeth and had had more than a few drinks. But his crazy "barking" was intriguing and I succeeded in engaging him in conversation. The subject turned, as is so often the case, to Katrina. He told me that he had been through the Vietnam war and two marriages but the worst experience of his life was Katrina, and he shed a few sad tears. Then he perked up, realising he was late for a party, barked and moved on.

We then went to Coops for some more jambalaya. There was a wait and we chatted with the tourists waiting for their first bite of Coops wonderful food. We finally got a table and ordered. We had told Jen about how fabulous the Bloody Marys are at Coops so she ordered one for us all to sample. But Jen and I agreed that our general mood was more inclined towards the "Jazz Rum Punch". So we asked our server (the servers in Coops are great guys - with plenty of dry, witty comments for their tipsy clientele), what was special about the Jazz Rum Punch. He replied "Well, its Jazz Fest, so we called it Jazz Rum Punch, but its really just our normal Rum Punch". It was good rum punch!!

Our food took quite a while to arrive - the place was packed. But the rum punch helped pass the time and lubricate conversation. The food was worth the wait and we were all umming and ahhing in satisfaction. After we finished we decided to go back to the DBA on Frenchman. Upon leaving there was an unsavoury character who seemed to want to tag along so Jen and our friend, Bill ran - full pelt - down Decature street to get away from him. Dazza and I were somewhat confused but met up with them up a side street. Then out of the darkness appeared a rickshaw and the young man pedalling asked if Jen and I would like a ride. We said yes and were whisked away through the streets of the Viuex Carre to the DBA. We realised neither of us had any money having given it all to Dazza so we hoped to meet him at the DBA. By some miracle we did and we paid him and thanked him for whisking us off with his rickshaw and conversation. (the photo above is from google - its not us)

And then we went home.

We agreed this morning that last night was like living in a Garcia Marquez novel or being a character in the movie "Big Fish". I am always surprised in ways I could never have predicted in this town. It is a Parallel Universe where Magic is Reality and you never know which path you will find yourself on or where it will lead.

High and Dry

2007-04-21T11:03:00.000-07:00

How many times have I heard it?
"New Orleans is a bowl. New Orleans is sunk below sea level."
How many times have you heard it?
How many times we believed it?

Now the headline in the Times Picayune:

HIGHER GROUND

A study finds that New Orleans has plenty of real estate above sea level that is being underutilized

And:

Study bust myth that New Orleans is sunken city

Breathe ouuuuut.........

2007-04-20T06:09:00.000-07:00

Phew, I'm calming down now. I wish I had something fun and NOLAliscious to blog about now - but its only 8am - so I'm hoping when I go to work this morning - up on Canal Blvd - that driving past all the crypts will cheer me up. Or maybe I'll have one of those N'awlins days where I'll leave the house and a stranger will call me baby and tell me to have a good day....

Singing in the Rain

2007-04-18T18:48:00.000-07:00

I woke this morning at 5am. The rain woke me. As I lay, trying to return to the joysome land of sleep, I heard a peculiar bird whom also had, no doubt, been awakened by the rain storm. He was singing his heart out in spite of his rain soaked plumage.

His song had two verses:

pieo pieo - ti ti ti ti - ti yi ti - pieo

pieo - ti ti ti ti - ti ti ti ti - ti yi ti - pieo

[pieo - quarter note; ti ti ti ti - 4 sixteenths; ti yi ti - triplet]

He was quite mesmerizing and had brilliant rhythm and pitch enough to make Messiaen go quite giddy!!

I will likely never know the type of bird who sang in the rain but I appreciated his help in passing the time until the wondrous gates of sleep opened once more to my willing being!

French Quarter Fest

2007-04-14T08:30:00.000-07:00

This weekend is the French Quarter Festival. It is free (always a good thing) and has all the music, food and drink and atmosphere you could want. Some friends and I (sadly Dazza had to work) went yesterday to enjoy the end of what was a gorgeous day in N'awlins.
Shrimp po'boy from one of the food stands. Amongst us we had crawfish etouffe, jambalaya, creole shrimp pasta, duck, pork and shrimp po'boys and a skewer of grilled shrimp and andouille sausage with pepper jelly .... yum!
We sat in Jackson square and enjoyed the end of the sunshine.
Mango daiquiris - candy in a cup with alcohol ... again, yum!
The sky blessed us with some nice colours whilst people danced and partied to their heart's content.

We made our way to the Brass Band stage. Brass Bands here are funky - nothing like the ones from home!! There is a dance impelling funk line from the sousaphone topped with sparkling trumpets and some right old razzing from the trombones....
We heard the band "Free Agents". [click on the link and you'll understand what I'm wittering on about] They were fantastic. One memorable song being "We made it through that water" ..... That's this town, take a horrible experience and use music and dance to help people get over it - celebrate the fact they are still here in spite of it all!!
I hate using a flash (I need a better camera...) so my night time shots always bring a dash of impressionism to them.

On our way to Frenchman Street we stopped at the Cafe Du Monde for some Cafe au'Lait and Beignets ... my friends complained that I was making us look like tourists by taking photos ...

Again, yum!!
On the sidewalk beside Cafe Du Monde is a guy who sets up most nights with his large telescope and "busks" in astronomy...!! Only in N'awlins....!
We ended the night on Frenchman Street. The Blue Nile is up and running (we'll definitely be checking out some bands there soon) after renovating. The guy standing outside it was very welcoming and when we returned his greeting of 'how you doin?' he said:
"I live in N'awlins, I'm great!"
and we replied:
"So do we"!!!!!!!!
We listened to the Panorama Jazz Band play at the Spotted Cat before heading home....
I love this town!!!

OK this is silly

2007-04-13T14:08:00.000-07:00

There are so many worthy things I could be doing with myself right now - read a book, go for a stroll in the sunshine, do some work (perish the thought!!)....

But instead I'm online procrastinating before I go and meet some friend to go to the Vieux Carre for FQ Fest....

So during my procrastinating I remembered what Dza was doing last night in his merriment (caused by beer - something he's highly passionate about!) - I mentioned to him that with firefox, which we use, you can type in a word and it will lead you to a webpage. He thought this was great and giggled away typing in "toilet plunger" and "beer goggles" and the likes (you get the picture). He was highly amusing until I fell asleep...

So I tried typing in my blogger nickname "cursed tea" and I was shocked and pleasantly surprised to find it leading me to my blog. Now I don't know if that's just on our firefox because it is used to coming to this site. But I'm sad enough to admit it was sort of cool....

Me need to find better things to procrastinate.....
Me v sad and pitiable!

And the Nagin Pot said...

2007-04-12T17:17:00.000-07:00

to the Blakey Kettle:

slap that hand
naughty naughty

makin' stupid comments is MY territory!!

Flood Damage - current

2007-04-12T13:23:00.000-07:00

I am planning on doing a big Katrina post - especially as Dza and I just watched the National Geographic film on Katrina - my blood was boiling and eyes a rollin - but I want to watch it again and take notes and write something with some substance, with some semblance of communicating to others what happened here.

Until then I urge you to go to these photos of school that were taken a week ago- only a week ago!! Here are Scout's from First Draft and here are Ray's.

Thanks to Jeffery at Library Chronicles for the links to these.

Think? huh?

2007-04-12T07:50:00.000-07:00

I just received a nomination from Horizon for a thinking blogger award. I am touched and honoured that she thinks that I actually think before blaring away on my keyboard!

The task is now passed to me to do the same for five blogs that make me think [and thereby giving anyone who should stumble here a highly recommended way out of this blog!]

I wish I could nominate the entire New Orleans blogging community, but as it is here are a few bright sparks:

Mark at Wetbank Blog. Always hard hitting, always controversial, always makes me think. My IQ goes up after every visit.

Traveling mermaid was my first foray into the NOLA blogging circle. I love her blog - full of fun, feisty political commentary and music (really like Rotary Downs that she linked to recently!).

Adrastos is a Nola blogger with a taste for British politics. My two worlds converge somewhat, under his posts. I am also glad to hear of someone else who reads the Guardian in N'awlins.

Ashley Morris is way more intelligent than I could ever hope to be and my wee brain cells get quite the workout following all his witty comments and links.

And finally a non-N'awlins blog:
Katie at Longayelander is an American girl from Long Island who is experiencing the joys (and irn bru, pub culture, and vomit...) of living in Glasgow. Its definitely thought provoking to see my country through an other's eyes.

The Way Between The Worlds

2007-04-11T13:43:00.000-07:00

I have just left another comment about NOLA as "Third World" and my distaste for the classification on Travelling Mermaid's blog (she has an excellent post on Dr Blakely's comments contrasted with some volunteers who came down here). I have been thinking about this term since I posted on the subject a month ago and got some thought provoking comments.

I was talking on this subject to one of my very good friends who is also Scottish and lives in the US. I have come to the conclusion that another classification is needed. One that communicates the richness, the magic that is almost tangible here. N'awlins often makes me feel like I'm in a novel in the style of Magic Realism. I feel like the upside down craziness of Jeanette Winterson in Sexing the Cherry, or I'm following Alice down that rabbit hole.

The rules here distort somewhat. Expectations are different. People are different. Its on the edge between things. Its like everywhere else and like nowhere else. I said to my friend that it feels a bit like the most magical place from my childhood: "the way between the worlds" in the Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. I think this is a better classification of this place than "Third World".

I know that this still leaves other aspects of this place (crime, FEMA failure, federal flood, hurricane relief and recovery, school system) not front and center but I think that's OK (as long as we make sure that no one ever forgets what happened and what is still needed here). The problem with the "Third World" description, for me lets the politicians and people in power off the hook (or at least not working as hard on NOLA's behalf as they could). It says we know we're doomed because this is how we classify ourselves and our position as a city. We need to advertise in our own classification of this city why this city needs to be saved, what is so special, why it matters to the world.

I think it would be good to say farewell to the Third World mantra and take on a more magical definition. Something that tells of the magical mystical NOLA that gets in your blood.

I know I am a newbie but I believe NOLA can be feisty and satirical without being self-defeating in the classification. The third world has no NOLA.

NOLA is the way between the worlds.

Josh Bell plays for pennies

2007-04-11T09:07:00.000-07:00

A couple of days ago I read this article about Josh Bell busking at one of the subway stations in Washington DC. There has been a lot of buzz about this. He played and made a paltry $35. But more than that barely anyone even noticed this violin virtuoso playing Bach. A lot of people are reading into this as a sign that people are uneducated about classical music (well that's true...), can't hear greatness or are just too involved with their busy lives to notice great art before them.

Then I read this response by a street musician from New York and went ah ha. It is complicated when you take great art - be it aural or visual - and put it in a different context. Great street musicians are great at playing for their audience. They also have to be great musicians but they need to have the skills to interact with their environment. As someone said of Josh Bell, if he was a good busker he would have chosen the correct time to play when people weren't rushing to get to work and by doing so would be respecting his audience.

I also liked hearing that busking made Josh nervous. Playing for people that had not already bought a ticket to hear him meant he had to validate himself with his playing and that made him nervous. Maybe its just me but playing to the expectations of people who have paid a lot to hear me would freak me out way more.

By the way Josh played the Mendelssohn violin concerto this past Fall with the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra at Tulane. He played for a tiny fraction of his regular fee as a way to give back to this city and its orchestra.

All Hail Easter

2007-04-07T17:18:00.000-07:00

Today it is cold!! We went to a friend's for a cook-out. We did cook "out" but definitely ate "in"! About two days ago it started to get cold at night and we brought out our duvet again. Today we were bemoaning Entergy and shivering in our shotgun.

And yes, today we actually had HAIL!! This cold snap is affecting a big part of the country - Dazza's Dad was reporting 19 degrees in Indianapolis today. I realise in a very short time I'm going to be dreaming of a day like today. When I post my witterings and groans on the heat I really must remember to link to this post!!

However this isn't really what I envisioned for Easter in N'awlins. There are Easter parades tomorrow - I'm hoping to brave some of the shiver effect and see some of them. But I have a feeling I'll be jealous of the Easter Bunny all wrapped up in his furry suit!

Storm that Bastille

2007-04-06T13:33:00.000-07:00

So much I could blog about today - but I've got so much to do (include shower.....). So here is the brief version:

Last night we went to TEACH NOLA fundraiser/awareness shindig at The Howling Wolf in the CBD. Its a great non-profit trying to get good teachers to teach in post-Katrina NOLA. Please check it out and if you are passionate and motivated and want to move here, perhaps this is for you.

The we went with our friends to Tipitinas to see Yo La Tengo play. Tipitinas is a funky place with a great atmosphere. There was some strange music from the opening band (dare I say it but we actually heard bad music in N'awlins!!) and Yo La Tengo seemed bent on mimicking it to begin with but luckily chilled out into their more standard indie emo style.

Today I read some fantastic stuff in Ashley's blog about storming the Bastille (ie city hall, those responsible) on Bastille Day and also he's put up an "official" weblink to the term Federal Flood in Wikipedia. Some NOLAites refer to the Katrina "incident" as the Federal Flood because it wasn't a hurricane that shattered this city it was the failure of the Federal levees.

And finally today was nicely rounded off by the Easter Bunny sending a package from Indiana with two cute stuffed toy peeps and other goodies.

Forecasting the Storms of Entergy

2007-04-05T14:08:00.000-07:00

Today I did something I haven't done in quite a while. I actually read a hard copy of a newspaper. We have some dear, old friends in town for a few days and we walked to Rue De La Course for coffee (photo) and to peruse the local rag and the NY Times.

In today's paper I found two stories that I found quite alarming. The first was to do with our storm forecasting capabilities in this country. Apparently we have a less than satisfactory means of predicting hurricanes. This is alarming. We need 400 million bucks to put a Quik-SCAT satelllite into orbit. I personally think this is money that would be totally justifiable. However its not going to be spent and on top of that the Feds are already $700,000 below what the funding should be for hurricane research in this country as it is.

Maybe its just me but surely the huge costs ensuing from Katrina would make hurricane awareness, prediction and evacuation a top priority in this country? But that's just little old naive moi!

The second article which made me mutter was an opinion piece about our lovely energy company in N'awlins, Entergy. Our bill was quite shocking last month and some friends of our had even worse ones ($500 - that's Cleveland winter prices - and a big apartment at that!!). So I read this article with interest. The conclusion particularly had my attention:

The Utility Committee is open to exploring any regulatory structure that will bring rates down. We welcome proposals from community groups.
But let's not repeat our past mistakes under some form of statewide regulation that dumps disproportionate costs onto New Orleans ratepayers.

I think I need to read the paper in hard copy more often.

Chocolate Billboard

2007-04-03T17:38:00.000-07:00

OK, I know this isn't about N'awlins but I couldn't resist. Shoppers in Covent Garden in London ate a Thorntons Chocolate Billboard that weighed 860lbs and took 300 hours to make in only 3 hours!!

Yes in the UK "Pancake Tuesday" definitely pales into insignificant wimpishness compared with Mardi Gras here but we do eat a ridiculous amount of chocolate and particularly at Easter - the shelves bulge with Easter eggs - America has a long way to go to catch up. Thorntons is good chocolate - I wish I'd been strolling through Covent Garden today - yum!

Monk

2007-04-03T08:08:00.000-07:00

A couple of nights ago I was with some friends and colleagues in the DBA on Frenchman. We were fortunate also to have Joe, the new bass player for the new Monk institute there too - he's a friend of one of my colleague's. I hadn't heard about the Monk Institute - and especially not about it coming to New Orleans.

In brief it is probably one of the best, if not, the best jazz program in the country. Seven jazzers get room and board, lessons with the very best, education experience and a stipend for two to four years. For a jazzer its like winning the lottery. With jazz greats like Herbie Hancock, Wayne SHorter, Terance Blanchard, and Thelonius Monk Jr. guiding them, its a dream come true.

This exceptional program has until now been in Washington DC and LA. It is such a wonderful gift that it has now come to New Orleans - for the next seven years!! There are so many bad things to read about this city right now (murder, levees, corruption) that it is just "pure dead brilliant" (to use a good old Glasgow phrase) to hear about this coming to this city. This is where jazz was born and in its time of need, having a resurgence in the very best in jazz returning here is just the best news!!

I'm looking forward to hearing these guys play.

The Whole Expat Thang

2007-04-02T11:20:00.000-07:00

I've been "tagged". Katie at Longayelander has issued a challenge of a set of questions pertaining to the expat experience. So here goes...

5 things that you love about your new country

You can be who you want to without the constraints of a set society structure and the go get it attitude.
My wonderful friends.
The healthfood stores.
The music (in N'awlins especially).
New Orleans, New York, San Fransisco, The Rockies, The Desert, Road trips, Utah, Hacky Sack, Hanging out.....

4 things you miss about your old country

Family and friends.
The air and the countryside - "God's own country" as my Mum says.
The self-deprecating humour.
Just home.

3 things that annoy you about your new country

Having to explain about being Scottish all the time (this was mostly in Ohio - in New Orleans they don't care so much...- but in a good way!)
The media - everyone seems to care more about American Idol than how their country is viewed in the world.
Suburbia.

2 things that surprise you about your new country

Mardi Gras in New Orleans (and New Orleans in general)
That "America" is just a concept - Miami, Cleveland, Salt Lake City, New Orleans they are all so different - its so hard to pin this country down.

1 thing that you'd really miss if you had to leave your new country

The sense of possibility in everything.

There I did it Katie. However I think I have way more to add - so here goes...

Being an expat is an odd existence. I think it is an existence that is becoming more common and certainly prevalent amongst my generation. I have many good friends married to spouses from halfway across the world. I have many good friends that live in far flung places.

This odd existence, for me, is defined by never feeling completely at home in either place anymore. I have been in the US for seven years and my sense of homesickness has faded somewhat over that time. My first year I was very homesick. Now I miss my family and friends just as much but I don't get depressed because I can't drive through the Scottish mountains - although I would still like to do that tomorrow.

My association with certain things have changed. I no longer hanker after Cadbury's Dairy Milk, or fish and chips. I dislike the supermarkets of Sainsburys and Waitrose and love Wholefoods. I still hate American TV - but know that's because of the bombardment of adverts. I still love British TV. But with the developments of the Internet I can create my "own" hodgepodge of good TV instead.

I still hate the American media and welcome Jeremy Paxman's direct and often times rude, questioning as a breath of fresh air. However I love the gutsy impassioned left of center activists in this country. I love the vegans, the environmentalists, the idealists. I love Harpers, The Utne Reader, and Mental Floss. But I miss reading the Guardian in hard copy and settling down with coffee and the Observer on a Sunday morning.

Being an expat, to me, means being able to create my own life with less constraints - my very presence is different. It means living between two worlds and in both of them at the same time. It means missing dear friends in other time zones. And missing big family gatherings. It means creating a life out of good aspects of two experiences.

Gun Crime in NOLA and the US

2007-03-29T14:03:00.000-07:00

Ever since Hurricane Katrina rolled through people have been talking and speculating about crime in NOLA. There was indeed zero crime in the city when the city was empty. But now it is not - the general figure for the returning population in New Orleans itself is around 230,000.

There has always been crime in this city (no doubt a correlation with there always being a lot of poverty in this city). It was bad before the storm and it is bad now. The figures per head of population make this city one of the most dangerous in America. There are tales of shootings, murders and muggings. My boss was robbed at gun point (that's AK47 gun point) on his own front doorstep in front of his wife and child on New Years Eve.

I was prompted to write this post by Mark's excellent post about his wife witnessing guns brandished a stones throw away from NOCCA where one of their children goes for dance classes. This is the comment I wrote on his blog:

Yet again a brilliant post - although one I would have rather you had not had to write!!!

As a legal alien from a civilisation without guns, American gun violence has always shocked me. I'm not stranger to it - a man was shot and killed at our laundrette two weeks before we left for the summer, in Cincinnati and we used to listen to the gun-fire and wait to hear the accompanying ambulance sirens from our deck.
I know there is the whole (in my view preposterous) right to bear arms thing here but really hows it working out? In the UK we have a tiny fraction of the gun violence (yes, we have some - but its tiny compared with the US - even per head of population). The police don't carry guns (we have a gun squad if needed). Its very hard to own a gun (after the Dunblane massacre the laws were tightened).

What scared me most though, was when watching a British TV program recently the person (a cop) was in danger and my automatic reaction was "oh no they don't have a gun"!!! So quickly we become used to guns and them being a necessity. When I first came to this country I was freaked out and scared everytime I saw a cop with their gun - now I'm scared if they don't have one.

We as humans are easily persuaded and our fear often clouds our judgements. The rise in crime in NOLA scares me and I have no answers. But if guns were not a "right" in this country I think it would be a lot safer.

I will never understand the American obsession with guns. Guns kill people and that is their purpose. I understand the right to bear arms if you are a pioneer fending for your life but we do not live in pioneer days. It is anachronistic. Yes, I know people now view guns as a necessity to defend yourself from all the criminals that patrol our streets, but this is the cycle this country is stuck in.

I wish I knew an easy answer to this, but I don't. I just know that I hate that aspect of this country.

The crime in this city is bad and the drug-lords have returned but without their normal ghetto enclaves of business their violence has spread to other normally, safer areas of town. I think the other issue is that when you have so many people so profoundly affected by such a catastrophic event as Katrina you have a population whose mental health is unstable and therefore more prone to extreme behaviour. Now I'm not saying that this means that everyone who lost their belongings, is living in a FEMA trailer, or is displaced, is waving a gun and robbing people!! - just that those with a predilection towards such behaviour are more likely to exhibit such behaviour as a result of their experience.

I think it is another symptom of loss in this city and a way of lashing out. This city could really benefit from an army of mental health professionals.

I understand why it is the way it is, I do not condone it and it makes me sad and angry.

I hate guns!

The One Who Keeps Getting Away

2007-03-28T22:28:00.000-07:00

OK, this may seem like a trivial post with all the wonderful things to report, all there is to be concerned about, in this astounding city. But right now I am at war.

I have an unwelcome visitor that won't leave - or let me commit squishing murder. There is a N'awlins mosquito in this room and she keeps biting me (someone told me - I can't remember who but recently - that the biting mosquitoes are female - I was unaware there was any other kind until I was informed of this....). I've glimpsed her a couple of times and yelled a lot and cursed a lot (sorry Mum) flailed at her a lot and this is a war that I am currently losing.

You might think this is a trifle but I am extremely tasty to mosquitoes which would be a mild annoyance if I didn't react to every bite by breaking out in a large red itchy welt.

My female foe is slowly welting me to death - well at least my wits end...

And its not even April yet!! sigh.....

"You should be ashamed...!!"

2007-03-27T07:49:00.000-07:00

Today, to commemorate the end of slavery, the British establishment assembled for a solemn ceremony full of pomp and circumstance. Things were going on in their usual dull way until this man rushed to the front of Westminster Cathedral to protest.

You can read the whole account in the Guardian. The best bit was his parting shot aimed at Her Majesty - "You should be ashamed!!"

Moses you ain't - "They" know!

2007-03-26T06:56:00.000-07:00

I have just read Chris Rose's recent article in the TP. I have also been reading a lot of NOLA bloggers posts on this issue. The issue is our wonderful, colourful major (yes, that's sarcasm).

He is famous for speaking his mind, only his mind is becoming something very few of us want to hear from. He is sounding completely nuts. He famously ranted during Katrina and woke up the Feds. He famously referred to this city as having always been a "chocolate city". He panders to the colour of the skin of his audience and says whatever inflammatory thing he thinks they wish to hear.

The latest Nagin saga has been his raving and ranting against "They". "They" want to divide this city up and remove the African Americans from the city. "They" see the aftermath of Katrina as a perfect opportunity to rid the city of the elements they dislike. "They" is a mass conspiracy. Mark at Wetbank blog puts it so well:

What's happening here is not happening to you in particular, or to the people you believe you represent. Listen, man: you're not Moses, the annointed leader of the Children of Isreal. The entire aftermath of the Federal Flood was not Pharoah out to get you and your people, and acting like that's the story line isn't going to bring about biblical miracles to restore the city to what it was. That's the PTSD and whatever else you have going on talking. Somebody who cares about you needs to take you aside and talk to you 'cause your messed up, and every time you open your mouth you mess us all up.

I have always been one (perhaps naively) who has thought that it should be the local leaders that would be those classed in the "They" category. After all if there was a conspiracy wouldn't the major be best placed to head it off, to provide the resources and structure to bring back the very people the so called conspiracy wishes to banish?

Major Nagin seems to be spending so much time these days looking for reasons to New Orleans problems that he's cross-eyed. Maybe its just my naive self but should he be looking for solutions to the problems instead of reasons.

I know Louisiana is famous for corrupt, inept politicians but really isn't Nagin too ridiculous for office? I know, I know, I'm naive.

Toad in the Hole

2007-03-25T10:55:00.000-07:00

Yesterday the house started to shake and there was a terrific thumping coming from the front. I opened our front door to find Matt, my landlady's boyfriend, surrounded by plants and bags of fresh dirt digging and rattling about in the flower (or rather weed as it has been up until now) bed.

The thumping mystery explained I gave him a cold drink and he explained that he had to take out the big cinder blocks that are in the bed to make way for dirt - after all how many plants can grow primarily on cinder blocks (lichen takes a while!!). He then told me that every time he took out a cinder block he would find a toad living in it. We both agreed this is a bit bizarre. When I saw him later on that night at the bar, he told Dazza and I that one of neighbours claims that the abundance of toads means that someone who lives in the house must be a witch. That means either our next door neighbour who is a Tulane grad student or Dazza or myself.

We do have second sight that runs in our family but "witch" that's bizarre. I do seem to attract toads - see my post from Miami (although I mistakenly called it a frog..). Maybe I need a voodoo consultation.

My favourite poet also had a thing for toads:

Toad

Stop looking like a purse. How could a purse
squeeze under the rickety door and sit,
full of satisfaction, in a man's house?

You clamber towards me on your four corners —
right hand, left foot, left hand, right foot.

I love you for being a toad,
for crawling like a Japanese wrestler,
and for not being frightened.

I put you in my purse hand, not shutting it,
and set you down outside directly under
every star.

A jewel in your head? Toad,
you've put one in mine,
a tiny radiance in a dark place.

By Norman MacCaig

Pumps, Levees ... follow-up

2007-03-24T09:28:00.000-07:00

Thanks to leigh c. for giving me some leads on where to find info on the state of NOLA's pumps and levees. She recommended these two blogs : Fix The Pumps, and NOLA Dishu. Both have lots to read and think about. She also recommended these books:
"Holding Back the Sea" by Christopher Hallowell

"Bayou Farewell" by Mike Tidwell

I am going to find these and peruse them - likely I'll need a glass or two of whisky (Scotch of course!) to steady my nerves as I dig further into this issue. I will write a detailed blog post when I am more informed - I have the feeling I'll have lots to rant about.....

NOLA Art

2007-03-23T10:18:00.000-07:00

New Orleans is an inspiring place and my time here has got me to pick up my paints and create again. Here are some NOLA inspired creations all using acrylics. (I went through quite a fleur de lis phase as you can see ...) For other stuff I've been inspired to do check out my other blog (witterings & wanderings).

Bach around the clock

2007-03-23T07:30:00.000-07:00

Wednesday was JS Bach's birthday (which reminds me of a 'Scotland the What' skit - "Noo if he wis alive i day, foo al wid he be?"). So to celebrate the event every year, in N'awlins, at Trinity church on Jackson, they play his music for a full twenty four hours. They start at 7pm tonight and end tomorrow at 7pm. I have been assured that should you wander into the curch at 2,3,4am you will indeed hear someone playing some Bach. That's quite a marathon!
I am intrigued, so Dazza and I are going to stop in by before we head to bed tonight (I'm working late so we think around midnight).

Pumps, Levees .... I'm curious

2007-03-22T15:20:00.001-07:00

I found out recently that we are going to be here for a while - my contract with work now extends for another two years and may become tenured. We could very well end up being here for several years. This is great. Its good to have a job. I love this city. We have friends here. We are happy living here.

So I'm curious about what exactly has been done for the protection of this magnificent place should (or when) a hurricane should roll through again. I know that it was the levee failure that flooded the city and that Katrina didn't hit New Orleans head on. So a chancing blow from a hurricane was enough to overpower the levees and flood the city.

I was talking to a friend the other night and he said that he thought what New Orleans needs to feel more secure and to show the world that it is more secure, is for another hurricane to come through and for the city not to flood. I have to agree this would indeed show that this city is on the path of regeneration. (don't get me wrong here - I'd rather a hurricane never came this way again ever - but I know I'm asking the impossible)

My friend was telling me that they have done "so" much to the levees that he thinks this may be a real possibility. So I'm curious if this is indeed true. I've been reading a lot about the failure of levee pumps on da po blog and on blogging new orleans.

So I'm wondering if I can find out more. Now that it looks like we are going to be calling this wonderful place home for the future I really need to know (I was interested before - don't get me wrong - but its just that now the need for knowledge feels more urgent).

I'm hoping that some of the wonderful N'awlins bloggers might drop by and point me in some useful directions. Until then I'm going to keep my ears pricked for any news on securing our home.

Gentilly Girl has a brilliant and succinct post on the subject!!

Super Sunday

2007-03-22T15:20:00.000-07:00

I had to work this past Sunday and was unable to go and see the Mardi Gras Indians parade. However this morning we found on Nola.com a media show of photos and sound from the event. Go here to check it out - its quite something.

Incredible

2007-03-21T09:09:00.000-07:00

As I said in my last post, everyday I learn something new and wonderful about this city and yesterday was no exception. A friend told me about a great duo that would be playing at the DBA, a bar, on Frenchman Street. So after I finished work at ten thirty I came home and met Dazza and we went down to Frenchman.

Wow. On the little stage at the DBA was this wiry energetic guy with wild hair and an orange shirt wrapped around his double bass. Next to him was a slight silver haired drummer responding to every twist and turn.

The bass player was James Singleton (pictured in the photo) and the drummer Johnny Vidacovich. Singleton had an array of pedals at his feet that enabled an electric ostinato for him to improvise on top of. He used the bow in frenetic high pitched acrobatics pushing the boundaries of the heights of the instrument and utilising every harmonic. He would then throw the bow into his tiny quiver attached to his tailpiece and start thumping out some funky lines with some slap bass thrown in. I've never heard a bass player make an upright bass sound so big and so deep. And certainly never heard one do slap bass and make it sound as good or better than an electric. I was blown away.

The drummer was astounding too. He responded to every change of mood. He twisted and turned using every effect possible. And he also sang and did the 'commentary'.

They are playing at the DBA next Tuesday night too - so if you can go and check them out - they'll blow you away!!

The guts of New Orleanians

2007-03-20T10:29:00.000-07:00

Please read this - N.O. - It's Just Me: It's Easier Than Being Here - it breaks my heart and it is literally breaking the souls and lives of people in this city.
There is so much neglect and injustice going on down here and it really feels that the rest of the country is saying "oh just get over it" when they have no idea what is going on down here.

Everyday I learn something new and wonderful about this city. It feels right now that everyday I also learn something heart wrenching too. People here are still living in FEMA
trailers. People are having insurance companies deny their claims when they have spent decades paying premiums. People are working hard everyday to afford the spiralling costs of living here (the latest Entergy bills are outrageous!) and then return at night to rebuild their homes. The levee situation is still a mess and we are fast approaching another hurricane season. Peoples' mental health is poor and sleepless nights all too common. The stress is affecting the death rate in this town - see here.
And pay particular attention to this:

Dr. Kevin Stephens, New Orleans’ health director, told members that his analysis shows a 42 percent increase in the mortality rate in the city since the disaster, “strongly suggesting that our citizens are becoming sick and dying at a more accelerated rate than prior to Hurricane Katrina.”

Where are the news journalists reporting this? Oh yeah, they're on the other side of the planet reporting a war that should never have happened. They're reporting where all our tax dollars are going - into a bottomless pit of despair and misery and death. Now what could those dollars be doing instead?.... Oh ...... perhaps building levees like those that keep Holland dry?

And just yesterday I was reading about how the business of war is booming. And Dazza pointed out something he heard about an armaments producer developing biodegradable BULLETS!! Yes, bullets that are good for the "environment"!!!

Where is the outrage? Where are the mass protests?

America is asleep, drugged by the media, the command to shut up in the name of being patriotic.

Meanwhile I am amazed by the guts of New Orleanians who everyday get up and rebuild their lives in the face of such adversity.

Here is a link to one such story.

Paddy's Parade Pics

2007-03-20T08:00:00.000-07:00

We passed this car all dolled up for St Patrick's day on the way to Louisiana and Magazine.On Louisiana turning into Magazine we found lots of lovely "Irish" men beaded and tipsy and willing to swap kisses for flowers and beads!
Me being slobbered by one said Irish man!! Later one guy seemed to want to give me a hicky on my neck while sweeping me off my feet!!!!The yellow and gold flowers are for the Saints colours! They also had a Saints float -Sue and I show off our fancy beads from kisses!But then she did get an early start at the pet shop!!
Dazza , after feeling like a fifth wheel with all the kissing of Irish men , finally got a cabbage from the lovely 'lassies' on the parade float!! Our loot!! Nice knickers eh!!
This was my favourite "throw" handed to me by a NOPD dressed in Irish garb - I'm not gutsy enough to try it out - but let me know if anyone needs to.....
I think the sign worked - but I think in future I'll make it in advance and put more explanation on it to avoid getting beads hurled at me with obscenities!!

St Patrick's Day & Green Wheelie Bins

2007-03-19T12:02:00.000-07:00

It's been quite a week since I last wrote anything here. In this fair city there was the St Patrick's Day parade with drunk Irish men and floats with beads, potatoes, carrots, peanuts, bananas, onions and, of course, cabbages!! There was also on Sunday, St Joseph's Day when the Indians parade again and there are various other celebrations. I had to work on Sunday and missed the St Joseph day thang - but I was screamin' for throws on Saturday.

I decided to try the whole "I'm Scottish" thing to see if I'd get better beads etc. So I wrote a sign that said "I'm Scottish" scribbled on a piece of cardboard and hung it round my neck. It worked and didn't work. I either got those lovely "Irish" men who are part of the walking parade (guys don't bother with this one until the floats come by because its all about us ladies kissing Irish men for flowers and beads) giving me brilliant beads (and slobbery kisses on the cheek) or I got them saying 'don't the Irish hate the Scots?' (one guy on a float yelled a profanity and threw beads ate me - ouch!). Now the guy who posed the question of the Irish hating the Scots would have know the answer if he had actually been IRISH. The Scots and the Irish and the Welsh all love each other - OK motivated by their mutual desire to see England loose at rugby....

Anyway we came home with beads galore, two cabbages, carrots, onions, peanuts, slim jims!!, a banana, and lacy green knickers!! Oh I also got a "get out of jail free" card for the NOPD!!

Photos to follow.....

Then this morning there was a tremendous commotion outside and I peeked out to see a new gleaming green trash wheelie bin. Its big and shiny and will hold all our trash - our falling-to-bits other one doesn't. Small joys!!

NOLA Blogging

2007-03-12T08:01:00.000-07:00

Since my last post I have made a wonderful discovery - a large, varied, informed, exciting blogging community in N'awlins. It shouldn't come as a surprise to me that the blogging community reflects the rest of the city - welcoming, friendly, gutsy, great sense of humor, pissed off at FEMA and government and not afraid to say it. I will be adding more and more blogs to my sidebar as I make my way through the lists that are on the blogs I have found.

Mark's Wet Bank blog is full of intelligent well written polemic posts which are informative and thought provoking. Travelingmermaid has lots of photos, links, and arty stuff - plus on Monday she kindly bestows a piece of ocean inspired music. Gentilly Girl gets me all riled up with her 'say it like it is' posts - I think they should print them out and put them on the idiot's desk in the oval office every morning!! Dangerblond is a blog of an artist in Metarie and she is a one woman tour-de-force of broken traffic signal reporting and to whom I will say a thank you to when I go through a certain light on my way to teach later on this afternoon.

There are more blogs out there for me to explore and I'll update the sidebar as I go.
NOLA ROCKS!!!

"Third World" New Orleans?

2007-03-10T12:41:00.000-08:00

There is an issue that has been conspicuously absent from this, my blog of New Orleans. The issue, of course, is Katrina.

The issue of Katrina is huge. So big that I've been daunted at the prospect of posting on it but I knew it was something I would have to do. So I'm going to do it in bite size pieces. I was inspired to finally begin this endeavour by a comment that Darren got at work and one I have often heard myself: "Welcome to the Third World".

I was puzzled upon hearing this the first time and attributed it to the response (or rather lack of one) to the Katrina aftermath. It was a phrase that the national media latched onto to describe the scenes of homeless citizens crying out for assistance. I have to admit I remember asking at the time if this was pounced upon so eagerly because most of these poor suffering people were black? The correlation of the circles of enslavement, debt and exploitation of African countries certainly fits with how the black community of New Orleans has been treated.

But this term also annoyed me. Yes the suffering was terrible and yes it should never have happened. But this suffering was different from that of people who have walked for days with little food or water for months on end through the African desert to get to a refugee camp. This suffering was First World! It was so awful because in America these people should have had government assistance, should have had proper levees protecting their homes, should have had water flown in to help hydrate them in the stifling heat. If this tragedy is looked at in the classification of Third World then there is done a great disservice to the magnitude of the wrongs that were done and the injustices suffered.

Yet I think there is more to what these people have meant when Darren and I have been met with the greeting "Welcome to the Third World" and I think its a greeting we would have heard had we come to this city prior to Katrina. This phrase is said almost with a degree of pride. I find it very odd.

I realise it is in reference to how inept and corrupt things can be run down here. I realise it refers to the way the rest of America has always neglected New Orleans. I don't realise how it can be accepted here. Or how flippantly it is bandied around. It has a degree of fatalism about it. If New Orleans is the Third World then its doomed to always fall behind other American cities.

If it was being used to describe the abject poverty that the New Orleans poor live or rather exist in, then I can understand it. The projects were slums (they are presently sitting empty waiting for either the old occupants to return or to be torn down). The poor live in housing which is totally unacceptable and try to eek out a living on next to nothing. And, of course, like the Third World, the poor here were/are mostly black. And like the Third World, they are OK when confined to their neighborhoods but condemned when they dare to misbehave and invade the richer areas. But this is also true of most big American cities: 'over the rhine' in Cincinnati, east Cleveland, Detroit.

It makes me mad when I hear (white of course) people claim that it is 'unfortunate' but you have to admit most criminals have black skin. This is something that the national media have been good at projecting and, of course, it goes back to slavery, segregation and civil rights. Instead of associating the color of their skin as a reason for their behaviour, we need to see the common thread of poverty. The don't turn to crime because they are black but because it is a means of surviving because you are poor. Perhaps if this reality was addressed the crime in America could be properly addressed.

New Orleans is not the Third World. Katrina was devastating but it wasn't a Third World event. Yes, some people lost their lives (close to the same figure as 911 - this is another post), yes some people were treated live animals, yes there was too little too late. But what people lost were homes with running water and electricity, they lost possessions, they lost pets, heirlooms, photographs. In the Third World when there is a crisis they don't have such things to loose.

There are some other articles on this issue I found online here and here and a blog post here.

Crickets Being Friendly

2007-03-07T17:17:00.000-08:00

Tonight something new is happening. I am sitting in our living space in our half of a double shotgun apartment listening to crickets. And not the sound of crickets outside but underneath!!

You see houses in the deep south are built with no foundations - or rather are mounted on stilt like structures of cinder blocks or bricks. This is to facilitate as much air circulation to keep the houses cool during the heat of summer.

The fancy houses have bricked up around the bottom of the house and an ornate grill to let the air out and in. The not so fancy houses (of which is the norm in N'awlins) have nothing and it is quite possible to crawl underneath. I have no desire to crawl underneath but many creatures, I suspect, do. We certainly have heard feral cats rummaging around and been privy to their wailing mating rituals several times. I believe that tonight an errant cricket or two has decided to take a walk underneath this house and sing for its supper.

In addition to this we also have a pair of pigeons who've taken a liking to the ledge above our front door. This makes coming and going a challenge when one doesn't wish do be decorated with bird droppings. To add to this I also have inherited a severe dislike of birds - to be more precise a fear of flapping. Trafalgar Square is my idea of a nightmare so when I go to the National Gallery in London I tend to rush in and rush out to the tube as quickly as I can.

I consulted a colleague today who used to live in this apartment and he recommends putting duct tape sticky side up on the ledge to put the flying rodents off. Fingers crossed it works. Hopefully we can end their occupation before they do something foolish like have offspring!

Meanwhile I sit listening to crickets. Which reminds me of one of my favourite poems by my favourite p oet Norman MacCaig, 'Aunt Julia'. I hope my crickets are friendly too.

Aunt Julia

Aunt Julia spoke Gaelic
very loud and very fast.
I could not answer her —
I could not understand her.

She wore men's boots
when she wore any.
— I can see her strong foot,
stained with peat,
paddling with the treadle of the spinningwheel
while her right hand drew yarn
marvellously out of the air.

Hers was the only house
where I've lain at night
in a box bed, listening to
crickets being friendly.

She was buckets
and water flouncing into them.
She was winds pouring wetly
round house-ends.
She was brown eggs, black skirts
and a keeper of threepennybits
in a teapot.

Aunt Julia spoke Gaelic
very loud and very fast.
By the time I had learned
a little, she lay
silenced in the absolute black
of a sandy grave
at Luskentyre.
But I hear her still, welcoming me
with a seagull's voice
across a hundred yards
of peatscrapes and lazybeds
and getting angry, getting angry
with so many questions
unanswered.

N'awlins Last Chance Saloon

2007-03-05T07:09:00.000-08:00

Yesterday the Times Picayune ran an interesting, frightening, urgent story. This one is worse than Katrina. This one is worse than levee failure. This one is catastrophic.

New Orleans is protected from storms like Katrina by wetlands that stretch , for now, 30 miles south of the city. The Gulf's stormy waters are buffered by the protection these barrier islands, marshes, swamps and cypress trees provide.

When Katrina and Rita visited their wrath on the Gulf coast in 2005 they took with them a large chunk of these protective wetlands. But even without these and other storms the wetlands have slowly been eroded by the most dangerous force to nature the world has ever known: human beings.

We have built levees (maybe not as well as we should've - but that's another post) that whilst protecting homes from flooding from the mighty Mississippi have meant that the sediment that the river has offloaded in South Eastern Louisiana has not been laid down. Oil and gas lines have been allowed to lay pipelines through the marshes destroying the natural ecosystem.
And in the nineteenth century a powerful enemy of the wetlands was imported by man: the nutria! These (quite frankly ugly) large rodents eat the roots of the swamps and marshes leaving the Gulf waters to reclaim territory.

The Times Picayune has a brilliant graphic on its website which explains all this in detail.

The scariest thing about this article and issue is how urgent this is. Experts are in agreement that this is something that needs to be addressed and dealt with now before it is too late. The next ten years are our last chance!!

Or no more Mardi Gras, no more po' boys, no more jazz fest, no more lagniappe, no more historic beauty, no more traditions. Just swamp or perhaps just water.

All I know is that it is possible to rectify this situation. If Holland could do it why not the richest country on earth? New Orleans is worth spending the time and money to preserve. This city gives back over and over and over. This country needs this city and this world needs this city.

I hope and pray that something will be done and done now! This city definitely feels like the last chance saloon.

Oh the Joy of Photo ops!!

2007-03-01T13:52:00.000-08:00

"New Orleans Needs Federal Aid, Not Presidential Photo-Ops.
Mr. President: Katrina Survivors Do Not Welcome You, We Rebuke You!"
This is a quote from loki at Humid City - a N'awlins blogging site.

The president is visiting today. And he is a smart cookie - eehhhm cough, splutter - I mean his advisers are smart cookies!! He is visiting a New Orleans Charter school today to see how post-Katrina the city's public schools are getting a fresh start. Hhhm let me see where is this school situated. Oh yeah - Uptown! Where everything is up and running and the had little or no flooding. Yeah a perfect place for a photo op to delude America into thinking things have turned around here really well.

Shouldn't he be out in Chalmette where everyone is living in FEMA trailers? Shouldn't he have cameras following him round all the broken parts of this city that show we need more funding more money more support more action more quickly! Then show the rest of America all the good bits that are up and running for the pleasure of tourists and travellers and partiers the world over.

But doing that would be dumb. It would mean facing the truth and letting it be told. One wouldn't want one's approval ratings to fall any lower, well not over something as insignificant as N'awlins.

Little Tombs of Homes, of Lives

2007-02-28T17:40:00.000-08:00

I saw this on "Blogging New Orleans". This is an art installation that was in New York and created by an artist from New Orleans, Jana Napoli. She came and toured the flooded neighborhoods after Katrina and found a common thread: drawers. Drawers from kitchens where family meals were prepared, drawers from tables where those meals were eaten, drawers from family heirlooms passed down the generations, drawers from cabinets, from desks, from vanities. She rummaged through the debris left by the side of those gutted homes and picked out drawers.

Those drawers form the 'Floodwall' installation. They are like little tombs as she says in the video on the website. She managed in some instances to contact the owners of some of the drawers and find out their experience of Katrina and her wrath. Those accounts are posted at the bottom of the installation.

I would love to see this exhibit but sadly its run has just ended in New York. You can visit the website and see a video about it here. I know there will be more and more exhibits about Katrina and her effect on the lives of the people of New Orleans. I hope people go, I hope people remember, I hope through their sadness they can remain angry enough to maintain the political pressure that will enable the willing to build a better gulf coast and a better defense and emergency system.

Why neglect New Orleans??

2007-02-28T10:54:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow the President is coming to visit. He is scheduled to go to one of the New Orleans public schools. I can't find out much more than that as to his schedule for the day. Metroblog New Orleans has a post about a meeting some folks are organizing to protest his visit.
I hate sounding jaded and defeatist but I also have to agree with the post author who suggests that perhaps a protest may be futile and that the best thing to do is to ignore him.

The Bush administration has failed New Orleans many many times over. They failed to have an adequate emergency preparations for the levees breaking (which was predicted and warned of over and over), for the care of those citizens who could not help themselves, for the evacuation of families, for the funds being allocated to the right people for rebuilding..... the list goes on and on. America should be angry - really angry. Billions (or maybe trillions?) of tax dollars have been spent and are being spent on a war that should not have happened in the first place. That money should have been allocated where it could make a difference to the lives of the citizens of this country.

New Orleans needs help. Yes, all the tourist stuff is up and running and tourists NEED to come back and are slowly. And yes, Mardi Gras was a huge success this year and lots of people came to experience it. But a drive around the east side of this city reveals those still missing, buildings unoccupied, neighborhoods empty. New Orleans is still limping. New Orleans still needs help.

It is not the people of America that are not helping (volunteers are still coming down here) but the government that needs to step in and do its job. I don't quite know why and I'd love someone to enlighten me, but the US government seems to think its okay to neglect this city. And this has gone on long before Katrina. Is it because of the whole French connection, the Louisiana Purchase thing? Is it because there are so many blacks (ex-slaves) in this city? Is it because this city likes a drink or five and to have a good time? Or is it because this city is so focused on celebrating that they don't complain enough?

What I do know is that the culture here is priceless and crucial. But I also know how unlike the rest of America it is too. Is that why? Is it because this city refuses to be taken over by chain restaurants, stores, big new generic homes and shopping malls? PLEASE someone tell me why?

Crickets - in February???

2007-02-26T18:01:00.000-08:00

I am finding this SO disturbing. As I got home tonight I paused at the front door to our shotgun apartment, to listen to crickets! It was about 72 degrees with sunshine today. I'm sure that s likely normal for Nawlins but not for ME!!
Don't get me wrong I'm not complaining. I like warm sunny weather as much as the next person. The thing that disturbs me is that it makes me fear what it will be like to live here in June - and then July, then August and September.
And please bare in mind that there comes with hot humid sticky weather a very large hazard - mosquitoes!! They are the size of dragons down here and the bite like snakes!!
I love this city, I love living here but I keep wondering when I'll have to "pay" for all of this and I have a feeling it will be SUMMER!!!! Stay tuned .......

Mardi Gras Indians History

2007-02-22T14:13:00.000-08:00

I have just found an excellent history an description of the Mardi Gras Indian culture. Here is a link to the page.

Mardi Gras Indians

2007-02-21T14:06:00.000-08:00

A spot of bright colour in the distance coming out of a neighbourhood signals the presence of a tribe of Mardi Gras Indians. They do not parade officially and finding them is a mixture of luck and a willingness to go into neighbourhoods which are impoverished and sometimes dangerous. Finding this awesome cultural spectacle is one of the highlights of my life.
The Indians have a rich history. They make their intricate costumes themselves and every bead and feather is carefully placed. The goal is to be the most beautifully masked Indian. Wikipedia has more on them if you're interested click here

Suddenly the chanting changes walking through the neighbourhood - chants of "we're goin to get em"etc. A rival tribe has been spotted!
Here comes the rival tribe. In the beginning of Mardi Gras Indian days the tribes would fight with violent and deadly consequences. People used to run when they heard the Indians coming. Today they are welcomed because the violence has been relinquished and now the "fight" takes the form of a verbal repartee which is practiced for a couple of months prior to Mardi Gras and they also compete over which has the most beautiful costume. We were lucky to witness one such "fight" on Dumaine and Fourth Street.

He'll be chief one day!

Mardi Gras Crowds

2007-02-21T13:22:00.000-08:00

He's my favorite!
She was just too cute!

Her sandwich board says "If its broke FIX IT!!" - there are lots of satirical costumes for Mardi Gras.
These guys are part of an unofficial "walking" parade.

I've actually seen this chopped up caravanette driving round Uptown. Now I understand the colour scheme - purple, green and gold are Mardi Gras colours.
People put their kids on ladders to get better throws. Kids are also affectionately referred to as "bead magnets" as the krewe member tend to throw their best stuff to the kids.

Even houses get dressed up.

She has king cake "babies" tied in her wig - now that's cool!

Marching Bands

2007-02-21T13:14:00.000-08:00

All parades have marching bands. Some are brilliant - playing very funky stuff for the crowds to dance to. Some dance with their instruments to the drum beat keeping funky time with the parade. They all have girls in tight leotards twirling and leaping. The most unusual one we saw was a steel band - from Michigan!!??

Dancing with sousaphones!

Parades, parades and more parades

2007-02-21T13:01:00.000-08:00

Rex toasting the house on St Charles - its traditional as this family would give lots of money to Mardi Gras.

Weird float in Zulu.
King Arthur - this is the Queen's float.

Zulu - the only all black (almost) krewe. A man told us that it is common for Zulu to have floats that breakdown. And that because it is a parody of Rex to follow, the tradition would often be to leave a broken down float in the way of Rex - trying to scupper Rex's parade. This year they had an empty float to symbolise those who are missing or yet to return to New Orleans after the storm.
Zulu krewe members are all made up - with the men having one white eye and the ladies two.

Krewe of Carrolton

King of King Arthur

Crawfish Boil

2007-02-21T12:53:00.000-08:00

Large pot: little critters called crawfish - like mini lobsters that live in mud, with seasoning, sweet corn, potatoes, sausage, garlic, onions, lemon. Leave to cook and hungry people drool over gorgeous smell.
Strong men to drain pot.
Empty only table covered in newspaper.

Grab a little critter, peal his tail and eat.
This little guy was a true professional.
Easy clean up!! Yum - great time was had by all - eating drinking and chatting. Thanks Sue for inviting me. and big thanks to Mark, Susan, Evan and folks for a great boil.

Beads grow on trees in N'awlins

2007-02-21T12:34:00.000-08:00

Today begins the recovery from Mardi Gras. It was fantastic, brilliant, amazing - well worth every braincell I killed off.

We live a close 10 minute walk to the St Charles Avenue parade route through Uptown. So we went and saw some of the early parades. There were people lining the streets and some ladders with kids atop but there was plenty of room and not a float would go by without some beads landing in my greedy paws!! You see something happens at Mardi Gras. Its called "Bead Fever". I, as a newby at this game, had it bad. As these wonderful floats go by you yell at the top of your lungs, "throw me something mister" and that generally results in beads coming your way. There are ways to get really good beads (and no not "that" way - only drunk college girls in the French quarter flash for beads - if you do that elsewhere you will almost be guaranteed to get arrested for indecent exposure). The way to improve your bead collection is to get eye contact with one of the krewe members on the float and they will generally taunt you with their offerings and then you jump and beg and plead and they will come your way. Now if a krewe member points at you and throws beads the tradition is those are your beads and should someone else catch them you can ask for them because they are yours (I wish I had known this as I had this experience where I lost my best beads - we're talking tennis ball sized gold beads!! to a woman who caught them over my shoulder when they were 'mine' by mardi gras rules). The beads you get are also called "Throws" - and sometime you get other 'throws' like cuddly toys, cups, doubloons, Frisbees, plastic toys and if you are very very lucky one of the most coveted throws - the zulu coconut! This all leads to "Bead Envy"!!!
Really all these beads are plastic tat but during Mardi Gras in N'awlins they are beautiful and people admire them and should you grab the flying string of beads at the same time as your neighbour - people also fight over them!

Who Dat?!!!

2007-01-15T10:17:00.000-08:00

On Saturday night I went to our local bar and watched my first American Football match. And what a match. The New Orleans Saints were playing the Philidelphia Eagles.

As way of background, the Saints have been one of those teams that could only be loved by local fans. One of those teams you root for but know only a miracle can help them. For 40 years they have been nicknamed the "aints" because of their love for failure.

There is another explanation for this addiction to failure and this being New Orleans it is not surprising that it is steeped in voodoo and superstition. The local folklore goes that the superdome (where the saints play) has been cursed. Marie Leveau, the voodoo "queen", from the 19th century is "offically" buried in St Louis cemetry No. 1 but the folklore tale has it that she was really buried in the cemetry that lies beneath the superdome (it was built on a cemetry). So Marie being the voodoo high priestess is not so happy about a bunch of 300lb men running about on her burial plot and therfore she cursed the team and the superdome. This is why so many New Orleans residents did not go to the superdome during Katrina - they were concerned about what Marie might do to them (the subsequent horrors that went on in there the folklorists took as proof of Marie's continuing power).

But this is a new season and the Saints are winning and have discarded their old nickname. So the new local folklore theory is that because of what happened during Katrina, Marie Leveau has decided to lift her curse.

There is also another interesting Football oddity in this town. It is "Who Dat". When the Saints score or win the fans all chant "Who dat, who dat dem gonna beat dem saints". This town right now is going "Who Dat" crazy.

So on Saturday I learnt a bit about the rules and could follow the game (thanks to one of my friends) and chanted along with the who dat fans. It was a very exciting game with the Saints up 6-0 then the Eagles 13-6 and so it continued until finally with Marie's backing, the Saints WON!! Our local diner now has a sign in the window proclaiming "We now sell Eagle eggs"!!!

They are now one game away from the superbowl and fans in New Orleans are rubbing their eyes in disbelief and cannot quite believe this is really happening. But if there is one city in this country that deserves this excitement it is New Orleans. So I hope everyone in the world will unite around the Saints on Sunday at 2pm central time and help them battle the Chicago Bears because for New Orleans it is least the world can do.

Frenchman Funk

2007-01-08T13:04:00.000-08:00

Today is my birthday. And I am spending it with a hangover!! We had a great night last night on Frenchman Street in the French Quarter. I had too many vodka and oranges to the point of falling of a stool - not quickly but in one of those slow motion drunk backwards stumbling ways. (I got some ribbing about that today ...)

The point of going to Frenchman was to hear a great band that plays at "The Spotted Cat" (see photo) on Sunday night, called "Big Soul". They consist of drummer, electric guitar, electric bass, saxophone and lap steel guitar. They are fantastic and if you can you should check them out at 6.30pm on Sundays. The lap steel guitarist is amazing - I don't know how he does what he does but wow. His name is Dave Easley and you can visit his website here. Their bass player is also a member of the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra and his name is Dave Anderson and his nickname is "symphony boy". I found a cool link to a gig the two of them did at the kennedy center in Washington DC - you can watch and hear the gig online here.

If you get a chance to go to the "Apple Barrell" on Saturdays nights you can hear Dave Easley playing with another amazing N'awlins musician, Coco. He also has a webpage and its worth going to his bio and listening to the sound clip of him talking about how he found his guitar and his weird tuning that he uses. You can check that out here.

Happy New Year, New City, New Life

2007-01-04T06:25:00.000-08:00

It has been way too long since I wrote anything on my blog. I can't believe that I didn't post an entry in December!!!

So an update is in order. And this is quite the update. At Thanksgiving Dazza quit his job - gulp - and gave his four weeks notice. So I drove back to Miami on the 22nd of December and on Christmas Eve we loaded both cars and drove to New Orleans leaving Miami to the plastic barbie dolls, freekie ugly transvestites and the Cubans.

So Dazza is all moved in and is going back to working in the arts (although has got a menial job to contribute some dosh in the meantime). He is happy for the first time in years (and so concurrently also is full of smart ass comments!!). We finally feel like we love where we live and have a life!! The fact that there is a pub just down the road (stumbling distance) with a wide aray of fine beers on tap also is plus - very much so for Dazza!!

In the meantime my Mum came to stay before Christmas and we visited a plantation (see above) and went on a tour of very very fancy and beautiful homes in the Garden District.

We heard a great jazz group in the French Quarter one Sunday morning - "Doreen's Jazz". They were incredible and Mum bought some of their CDs for Christmas presents.

Dazza came up for a day when she was here and she made Christmas dinner - a week early - and we opened all our British presents. Just like home without the Queens speech.

I was inspired to finally get out my acrylics and get painting and creating. When I figure out how to take decent photos of my work I'll post some examples.

I feel 2007 holds far more promise than previous years have and the most exciting part being able to enjoy our life!

NPR - Nutria Hunting in Jefferson Parish

2006-11-30T20:07:00.000-08:00

The god send of all car journeys in the USA is when you are blessed with finding enough NPR stations between two cities. Luckily Miami to New Orleans is not too bad (except for a redneck part of Florida). So while I was listening on Tuesday in my car, to "All Things Considered" I heard an interesting story on the Sheriff of Jefferson Parish who has got himself into hot water again for his less that PC ways of law enforcement. He is quite a character and the article is well worth listening to or reading the webpage - here.

But the great part of the story was not about the Sheriff. It was about a bunch of guys he hires to go out in pick-up trucks and shoot Nutria - a form of swamp rat (click on it for more info). It is so Louisiana to know there are a bunch of guys who go out with guns to shoot these rodent pests to try to prevent them from burrying into the levees and damaging them. I'm surprised fema didn't try to blame the flood from Katrina on this hairy, whiskery fella instead!!

Drivin' to N'awlins

2006-11-29T05:48:00.001-08:00

So yesterday I did the hellish 12-13 hour trip drive from Florida to N'awlins. I have just given up coffee and chocolate (I know, I know, me give up chocolate - no I swear the world is not coming to an end!!) and so did the journey aided by the power of green tea - "Zen" green tea from Starbucks to be precise. The tea was wonderful and I was more aware than normal. With the amount of coffee and chocolate I would rely on for that journey I always felt jittery, awake, but jittery. However with the green tea I was awake and more aware than normal. Don't get me wrong I still miss the gorgeous taste of coffee and, of course, chocolate, its just that I reluctantly have to admit to feeling much better without them.

So without my jitters I noticed some interesting things on my 12 hour meditation in a metal box whizzing along asphalt. First was that Autumn, Fall whatever you call it comes to the South, just late. When I got about half way up Florida (so just past Orlando) amoungst the palm trees there were occassional appearances of orange and yellow. As I drove further those appearances grew until they dominated the landscape. It wasn't the same as Ohio and those other states with thier swathes of colour. This was the southern trees decorated with vines which also were changing into gorgeous colours of yellows and oranges. It looked like nature was decorating for Christmas. I have to admit I was happy to see fall - I hadn't realised how much I was missing it. The strange thing was it all happened during the week I was in Miami for Thanksgiving.

The other thing that kept my synapses occupied were the clouds. It was as if they were jealous of the display the foliage was making and were determined to outdo them. I saw Goofy, the old man in the half moon, a cherub and a rabbit. And don't worry I was watching the road too!!

Glass of Many Colours

2006-11-12T22:23:00.000-08:00

Today was a true "Lagniappe" day. For explanation I can think of none better than Mark Twain in "Life on the Mississippi":

We picked up one excellent word — a word worth travelling to New Orleans to get; a nice limber, expressive, handy word — "lagniappe." They pronounce it lanny-yap. It is Spanish — so they said. We discovered it at the head of a column of odds and ends in the Picayune, the first day; heard twenty people use it the second; inquired what it meant the third; adopted it and got facility in swinging it the fourth. It has a restricted meaning, but I think the people spread it out a little when they choose. It is the equivalent of the thirteenth roll in a "baker's dozen." It is something thrown in, gratis, for good measure. The custom originated in the Spanish quarter of the city. When a child or a servant buys something in a shop — or even the mayor or the governor, for aught I know — he finishes the operation by saying — "Give me something for lagniappe."

The shopman always responds; gives the child a bit of licorice-root, gives the servant a cheap cigar or a spool of thread, gives the governor — I don't know what he gives the governor; support, likely.

When you are invited to drink, and this does occur now and then in New Orleans — and you say, "What, again? — no, I've had enough;" the other party says, "But just this one time more — this is for lagniappe." When the beau perceives that he is stacking his compliments a trifle too high, and sees by the young lady's countenance that the edifice would have been better with the top compliment left off, he puts his "I beg pardon — no harm intended," into the briefer form of "Oh, that's for lagniappe."

So today I had my little bit extra, my serendipity, a little bit of magic floating along on the New Orleans wind. My wonderful friend, Harriet, whom I am blessed to know, called me up this morning and invited me to go on a tour of stained glass windows in New Orleans churches. I said I'd be delighted and so began my adventure.

In any other city most people would reply to the suggestion of a stained glass tour with derision, as something to perhaps suffer through. But not here. There are so many churches here - so many. They are of every shape and colour but generally can be relied upon to be Catholic, that being the predominant faith in this town. In another city my friends would have heard my afternoon plans and taken pity on me, but not here. So many were excited for me, even a little envious. To be honest I cannot blame them.

In total we went to four churches, four totally different churches, all thrilling in thier own individual way. All deserving of their own individual postings.

St Dominic Catholic Church

2006-11-12T09:44:00.000-08:00

The first was "St Dominic Catholic Church" on Harrison Avenue, just off Canal Street in Lakeview. It is a stunning structure built in 1961 and designed by the New Orleans architect Irving Kohler.

Greeting you at the entrance to the church is St Dominic himself displaying the battle scars of the Katrina waterlines for all to witness. Each church has its history of surviving against the odds of fires, demographic changes and, of course hurricanes.

When I entered the church I was in awe of the size and scale of the place. It is very modern but also very stately. I should like to quote the art notes they gave us for the tour:
"The windows at St Dominic church, especially those in the nave, are striking. They were designed and created by the Botz und Miesen Studio of Cologne, Germany. the company sent one of its artists to New Orleans to capture local elements, such as Spanish moss, in the designs. The symbol at the center of each cartouche reflects some aspect of the Dominican belief and practice, such as the black-and-white Dominican shield, the trumpet of St. Vincent Ferrer, and the crown of thorns of St. Catherine of Siena."

I know the grey structural elements are inspired by the louisiana swamp plants but I find them more mechanical, industrial or reminiscient of the architectural details of New Orleans.

The transcept windows, east and west of the altar are huge striking abstracts. The east is symbolic of Mary and the west of Christ's passion. I was particularly taken with the huge droplets of blood that are represented in almost 3-D. They were designed by the German artist, Fanz Pauli.

The window that struck me on first entering the church was the one on the south wall. It is huge and magnificent. It is designed by John Chase, an important artist and historian from New Orleans. The normal procedure for designing figures in stained glass windows on this scale is to make the head much larger than the feet so that the figure is in proportion to those looking up at it. This convention was not followed by Chase and consequentially Christ has great big clod hoppers of feet. The very nice lady that took our tour for this church told us that many people see this as making Christ appear more human and symbolise his "walking" the earth.

There are also lots of ceramic figures of saints around the church walls. They are very unusual and sometimes seem like they are almost appearing out of the walls themselves. We were told of one in particular - St Peter Martyr. He refused to die.

St Peter Claver Catholic Church

2006-11-12T09:27:00.000-08:00

So next we got on a schoolbus - yes, one of those American yellow school buses. I think I was a little over enthusiastic about it as it was my first time ever being on one!! We were then driven (whilst trying to ascertain the score for the Saints game that was playing at the time) to Treme. It is a black neighbourhood of New Orleans - if you click on it you'll get more info from wikipedia.

The houses were gorgeous and we were diverted by a different street because of what we thought could very well be a small parade (its started already). The church is very modest looking from the outside and doesn't give anything away as to the treasures that lie inside its walls.

On walking into the building I was overcome with a feeling of calm serenity and warmth even though the walls were somewhere between white and cream. The wood is beautiful and so too the glow from the colourful stained glass windows.

I was thrilled to discover that all statues of Jesus, Mary and the christ child were depicted as african and carved lovingly out of wood. From the notes we were given, these carvings are from Nigeria.

There were also wooden carvings, which were like totem poles, of important black figures in history and the community - the souzaphone player was my favourite!!

The large painting of Christ was also quite hypnotic.

The stained glass windows date from various times but a New Orleans artist, Ruth Goliwas, was commissioned to creat a window to commemorate Hurricane Katrina. This church had five feet of water and had to be restored after the storm. The carpet was replaced with tile - which looks perfect.

This church is a work of love from their congregation. It was begun as a church with no windows, no door, 154 years ago and now is a beautiful gem in the community.

The only thing I didn't like was that they have a running fountain beside the altar - it made me want to pee - I don't know how people get through services without running to the bathroom!!