 |
03/16/10
It’s been awhile since my last post, and a lot has happened. Not only did I fall off the wagon — hard! — and completely profane my Lenten promise to abstain from sugar, but I’ve also shortened my post-Mardi Gras recovery and enjoyed every second of it. Well, not the sugary fall from grace part — just the general idea that I’m still living it up in the Big Easy and getting happier and healthier each day.
I’m not sure why it took so long to make the connection, but this weekend I was reminded that Louisiana is the happiest state in the country, according to a study done by the Centers for Disease Control in December 2009. Imagine if the CDC did another study today on the happiest city in the country: It’d surely be...
|
 |
03/02/10
When I was 10 years old, my mother took me to Newark Symphony Hall to see the legendary Alvin Ailey Dance Troupe. Athletic and atypical yet graceful and gifted, the dancers defied standard models of modern dance. Many of the dancers were either too tall or too muscular, but in every capacity they could pirouette as wistfully as Anna Pavlova, gyrate as provocatively as Josephine Baker and leap as high as Catwoman. Their skill and stage presence was astounding, and from that moment, I wanted to be a dancer. A few weeks after seeing them perform, my mother enrolled me in jazz dance and ballet classes. I think I lasted two weeks.
It didn’t take long to realize dancing wasn’t my forte at that...
|
 |
02/23/10
As confirmed this Mardi Gras, I’m still a beadwhore, tried and true –– not in the sense that I like to flash anything other than a smile to get throws and doubloons but rather by the sad reality that I have an indefatigable lust for beads of all colors and sizes. What’s a girl to do? Fortunately, the transition away from the New Orleans party season wasn’t as bad as anticipated. I mustered the courage to give away more than half of our bead booty, I was able to resist the last slice of King Cake on Ash Wednesday, and I finally made the commitment to start cooking –– well, learning to cook –– Creole and Cajun style.
On Sunday I decided to impress the hubby with a home-cooked meal of fried green tomatoes, maque...
|
 |
02/09/10
Last Thursday I started my morning routine as usual. I sat down to breakfast with the Times-Picayune splayed across the table, hoping to read of black-and-gold glory. Instead, I landed on a front-page heartbreaker. Turning away from my food in disgust, I centered on an article about a double murder on France Street. I read about one victim’s mother, Debra Gillmore, and her desperate plea to onlookers who gathered as authorities carted away her son’s lifeless body. “Stealing and murdering –– for what?” she asked them. “Black-on-black crime for nothing.”
In case you haven’t noticed for the past few weeks, alongside every Saints headline, there’s been yet another story about yet another senseless killing....
|
 |
02/02/10
The Saints are in the Super Bowl. Everyone outside of Indy is on the NOLA bandwagon. And the national perception of the city has changed quite dramatically … almost overnight.
It’s hard to believe that a little more than four years ago, a pack of politicos, economists and cultural anarchists called for the end of New Orleans’ existence. Remember? It was a sentiment thrown around after Katrina by naysayers with no vested interest in the city, by outsiders who valued momentary pragmatism over passion and lacked the courage to believe. They spewed talking points, some quite memorable. "It looks like a lot of that place could be bulldozed," then-Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert blabbered all over the hill. And Slate’s Jack Shafer...
|
 |
01/26/10
A few months ago a good friend of mine had some harsh words about the faithful battle cry “Who Dat!” “You sound like an ignorant illiterate,” she quipped. She thought it was shameful that I’d rushed in with the herd and joined the Who Dat Nation without pause. So she served up some advice: “Do yourself a favor, and don’t say that, OK? It sounds ridiculous.” Confused, I responded that it was offensive how she denigrated the “Who Dat” chant, particularly because it has a long albeit sordid history in the Negro minstrel culture. From there, she and I volleyed points about the grammatical correctness of the chant, but in the end I was silenced, as she grew up here, not I. And what did I know about a “Who Dat”?
|
 |
01/19/10
If it’s not the coffee capital of the world, New Orleans is definitely the coffee capital of the South. With so much to do here, it can be refreshing just to hide out at one of the many coffee shops scattered around the city, such as Rue de la Course on Carrollton Avenue or Café Rose Nicaud on Frenchmen. Each place is unique and provides various doses of caffeine, entertainment and space for solitude.
On Sunday afternoons, I like to ride my bike down Camp Street to the Still Perkin’ coffee shop on the corner of Prytania Street and Washington Avenue. Although Still Perkin’ doesn’t exactly have the counterculture vibe of shops in the Marigny and Bywater, there’s something eerily majestic about reading on the patio beneath mammoth...
|
 |
01/12/10
I’ve been in New Orleans for a good 18 months now, and I’m beginning to worry that I’ve lost my tolerance for cold weather. I know this arctic blast is unusual for a usually subtropical New Orleans. But why wasn’t I prepared? My Jersey genes –– the ones trained to embrace freezing temperatures –– failed miserably this time around. I guess I’ll take the hot, sticky humidity any day over the icy cold.
Fortunately I stayed busy during the deep freeze, with work and other opportunities to flit around the city. On Thursday I attended a bridal show at Pat O’s on the River. The show drew a...
|
 |
01/05/10
I was excited a few months ago about voting for the first time in a New Orleans election. And the feeling heightened every time I’d deface my Ray Nagin Coloring Book.
So I’ll just come out and say it: Leslie Jacobs was my first choice for mayor of New Orleans –– at least until she dropped out. After her departure, I leaned toward Ed Murray –– at least until he dropped out to avoid racial divisiveness. Now for the third time I need to consider my vote in what was shaping up to be a momentous election. Doesn’t it seem like the race has pinwheeled into an obvious contest of money and entitlement: Landrieu versus Georges?
Then again, what do I know? This is my foray into New Orleans politics. I don’t...
|
 |
12/22/09
It snowed more than 2 feet this past weekend in all of the places I’ve lived north of New Orleans. Virginia declared a state of emergency, D.C. and Philly buckled under record snowfall, and Jersey and New York received their typical winter smattering of storms.
I wish I were there with my family in Jersey to shovel the mess and make snow angels, to enjoy the symbolic ushering in of the holidays. Though winter solstice was yesterday and the seasons have officially changed here in New Orleans, it still doesn’t feel like winter or Christmas. I’ve found that the days pass here in a season-less way, and the passage of time is highlighted by various parties, festivals and political indictments; the holiday spirit here differs greatly from the holidays I...
|
