Tag Archives: French Quarter

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Panel on New Orleans book, “Unfathomable City”

Friday panel at Tennessee Williams Festival:
Rebecca Snedecker
Garnette Cadogan
Shirley Thompson
Joshua Jelly-Shapiro

RS: it’s true that all 50 writers/researchers had their own experience about working on the book. Can the panelists describe their own experience?

ST: had little idea of what the final book would be. ..pleasantly surprised when it arrived in the mail…
The book invites readers to follow on their own path.
New Orleans has consciously used its place itself as a way to entice others to it, especially after the Civil War. This book chips away at that tourist narrative…

GC: shape of his essay was meant to resemble the shape of the city…

ST: tried to capture the paradox of diametrically opposed ideas. Sugar as a topic is a delightful treat and a commodity.

JJS: what’s interesting is that maps are stories-even narratives-and stories really contain maps. Combining the two is natural.

GC: an essay is a personal voice, a snapshot and is never really finished. Wanted the essay to contain the same sort of reactions (“write it as it felt”) as there is to the subject matter (bounce): joyful and disdainful at the same time, infectious feeling but also to contain the ambivalence that also exists.
(Tried to not use the word infectious, but ended up with it in there anyway.)
An intensely local subject but international at the same time, just like the city itself.
RS: it was important to remember that visuals and text shouldn’t be redundant, just like in cinema.
GC: there are 2 kinds of writers: those who hand in their work and those who have it pulled from their grasp. This project reduced the anxiety of attempting to contain the multitude-ness of the subject since the maps had their own story. It’s like the person who only listens to reggae music doesn’t know reggae music.
And I remembered New Orleans was here before me and will be here after me.
RS: what’s interesting is that the history of bounce music in New Orleans is partly the history of the projects (aka project music) and therefore is really about pre-K New Orleans. the map is one of those that does not physically exist any longer.
ST: Some maps have collapsed history, sugar for example is both the history and the contemporary story of sugar.
ST: I am usually skeptical of mapping. It’s really an act of conquest. Also because they impose a new set of claims on a place and attempt to define every site. Resistance itself is often about not being mapped, about resisting being named in a colonial way.
I bought (editor) Solnit’s SF map book Infinite City and saw that it showed creative resistance and had deep respect and humility for its subjects.
JJS: I also liked how the footprint of the city varies a good deal in the maps and essays.

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Concerts in the Courtyard returns at HNOC

Friday: Concerts in the Courtyard with Hot Club of New Orleans

Show: 6–8 p.m.; Doors: 5:30 p.m.
533 Royal Street
Admission is $10, free for THNOC members.

Now in its seventh year, Concerts in the Courtyard offers a fun, casual way to kick off the weekend with live outdoor performances by Louisiana musicians. The fall series opens Friday, March 14, with a performance by Hot Club of New Orleans.

Hot Club of New Orleans, whose performance at the November 2013 event was rained out, takes swing-era music and retains a classical groove, melding it with modern sensibilities. They count greats like Duke Ellington, Django Reinhardt, and Stephan Grappelli among their influences, and their tight but fun sound has led to performances at various festivals including the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, French Quarter Festival, Fellini Jazz Festival, and Jazz Ascona Festival in Switzerland. Band members include Christopher Kohl (clarinet), Matt Rhody (violin/vocals), Nathan Lambertson (bass), Larry Scala (guitar), and John Rodli (guitar).

All concerts this season will feature white wine from Republic National Distributing Co. and beer from NOLA Brewing Co. Republic National Distributing Co. is the second-largest beverage alcohol distributor of premium wine and spirits in the U.S. NOLA Brewing Co. was launched in 2008 by local entrepreneur Kirk Coco and Peter Caddoo, a former brewmaster at Dixie Beer.

Mark your calendars for the rest of the spring 2014 season:

Thursday, April 17: New Orleans Nightingales
presented in conjunction with the exhibition Shout, Sister, Shout! The Boswell Sisters of New Orleans

Friday, May 16: Viváz
presented in conjunction with the exhibition Creole World: Photographs of New Orleans and the Latin Caribbean Sphere

Friday, June 13: Africa Brass

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Societies of Saint Anne and Saint Cecelia march today

“Some parading organizations are longtime closed groups; others are more open, like the famous Society of St. Anne, which has been parading through the Marigny and French Quarter for years. It was that group’s extraordinary growth and worldwide recognition that was the impetus for the creation of St. Cecilia, in an effort to scale down the number of paraders and be more “neighborhoody,” Kate says.
St. Cecilia Society was created in 2007, along the lines of the older St. Anne Society.

It’s off through the Marigny to the French Quarter, with a stop at Harry’s Bar on Chartres Street, and down to the Mississippi River.
Once we got to the river, people often had small bags of ashes,” Kate McNee explains. “They would do an offering. The band calmed down and played a dirge, much like a New Orleans funeral. Then when that ceremony was done, they would be back up, and we moved on joyful and triumphant. In St. Cecilia, we do continue that tradition.”

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Landrieu hands keys to city to Rex

In Spanish Plaza, this year’s queen of Carnival, Carroll Gelderman, stood by as Rex issued a proclamation.
“I do hereby ordain decree the following,” Laborde said, “that during the great celebration all commercial endeavors be suspended. That the children of the realm be freed from their studies and be permitted to participate in the pageantry.”
And to the city’s political leaders, he added:
“That the mayor and City Council cease and desist from governance.”

“We will fulfill the will of the people and turn over the key to the city to you, so that tomorrow in New Orleans will be a day of abandon,” Landrieu said. “Happy Mardi Gras.”

Landrieu hands keys to city to Rex | wwltv.com New Orleans.

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Roy Guste, FQ photographer captures Krewe de Vieux 2014

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When was Carnival’s golden age? Take a look around — we’re living in it | The Lens

C.W. Cannon one of my favorite columnists, talks of our current Carnival period as a golden age with more democratic and satirical characteristics than we experienced in the late 20th century, where whites-only krewes had their way and superfloats flourished which led to the demise of many of the small neighborhood parades. I’ll tell him how much I appreciate this on the downtown parade routes that I am sure to see him on over the next few weeks..

Russian literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin, in a book about folk culture influences on the great Renaissance French writer Rabelais, outlined a theory of Carnival based on ancient and medieval traditions. Centuries later, it’s remarkable to witness how the “carnivalesque” spirit he details lives on so palpably on the other side of the world. A few of the key attributes Bakhtin ascribes to Carnival are a satirical impulse of a bawdy kind that he calls “grotesque realism,” the inversion of normal prevailing social hierarchies, and mass participation.

In light of principles like these, it’s a no-brainer that the latest city ordinance supports, rather than inhibits, the ancient foundations of Carnival tradition. Even here in New Orleans, one of the prevailing social strictures upended by Carnival has been segregation in public settings. Blocking off and segregating swaths of the public space for members-only parties doesn’t jibe with the carnivalesque injunction to cast off social distinctions and rub shoulders with strangers for a limited period of time.

When was Carnival’s golden age? Take a look around — we’re living in it | The Lens.