YOU ARE THE REASON
The Bowery Presents
@theartofmadeline
Xuebing Du
I'd rather be in outer space 🛸
Discoholic 🪩
shark vs the universe
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Today's Document
One Nice Bug Per Day
h
Jar Jar Binks Fan Club
Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her
Love Begins
gracie abrams
Sade Olutola
Show & Tell
he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
Misplaced Lens Cap
Keni
seen from Palestinian Territories
seen from Indonesia
seen from New Zealand
seen from United States
seen from Pakistan
seen from India
seen from Bangladesh
seen from Greece
seen from United Kingdom
seen from Pakistan
seen from South Africa
seen from Brazil
seen from Pakistan
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seen from Saudi Arabia
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@bourbonandcanal
Celebrate International Museum Day by visiting the Museum for FREE all day. The main building is open 10:00 a.m.–8:45 p.m., and the Perelman Building and Rodin Museum are open 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m. Stop by and see your favorite artwork, like the Japanese Teahouse, Rodin’s The Thinker, or Creative Africa.
Photo via Instagram by @lifewithasideofbacon
dear @neilhimself, wedding time space collision.
remember when we got fake-married in this exact spot in new orleans on your birthday? walking past it ten minutes ago, I was stopped by @amberrayc on her bicycle. I know her because I got an amazing picture of her a few months ago catching a bouquet at julie atlas muz’s wedding in new york and emailed it to her. she’s here in new orleans now, chasing a new romance. i put her on the list for tomorrow.
wish you were here.
love, wife.
ps amazing photo by @slazzle.
And she makes me happy and breaks my heart at the same time. Suddenly missing her hard.
But the Unchained Tour is wonderful.
Trombone Shorty has been touring with the Neville Brothers and has a new album with appearances by Jeff Beck and Kid Rock, among others. (Ringo H.W. Chiu / For The Times / July 31, 2012)
At age 26, bandleader Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews is the heir to a legacy of…
From classical to Cajun and blues to bounce, New Orleans has expanded the American songbook while teaching the rest of the planet to “shake dat thing.” And we haven’t even mentioned Louis Armstrong yet.
Hear a mix of the best music of New Orleans, DJ’ed by WWNO’s Gwen Thompkins.
Photo by Josh Jackson for NPR
Beignets at Du Monde
written by Dan Roeder, presented by UMBC TheatreCOM's New Playwright's Festival 2012
My initial reaction was that I expected more. I didn't realize it was over when the lights went out. The last line, "I'll never forgive you," was just so full of emotion that I just didn't want to believe it was over. It took place with limited resources, since the TheatreCOM was sharing the space with the Dance Department that night. (Such problems will be avoided once the new Performing Arts and Humanities Building is fully open!) It was set in only a few places in New Orleans: Tilda's front porch, Tilda's house, Cafe Du Monde, a train station, and Lake Pontchartrain. Using only a few characters, my friend Dan combined his theater experience with his budding knowledge of New Orleans and the French Quarter. I saw it on opening night; my professors saw its final performance. I'm hoping that a more embellished play involving more scenes and more character development will be on the new stage next semester -- this should give him the chance to enhance Jacob's character. I'm impressed that Dan was able to write this play without definite knowledge of what kind of space he would have. The pivotal scene definitely was at Cafe Du Monde, a restaurant in the French Quarter (incidentally, founded by the Spanish) famous for beignets. Dan obviously conducted a good deal of research to discover the tradition of blowing sugar on the guest of honor. Unfortunately, Eve didn't understand this tradition that was so essential to her older sister Tilda. Right down to the costumes, the scene at Du Monde was perfectly crafted. Tilda wore an imperious red dress, and Eve's dress was stained red after her unexpected miscarriage in the bathroom. The whole time, Eve was an outsider -- refusing to embrace her sister's French Catholicism, rejecting New Orleans customs, and generally playing her Methodist father's favorite. Meanwhile, Tilda was rejected by her father as she embraced the French Quarter. Overall, the play kept me at the edge of my seat and I kept expecting more. Well done, Dan! also, props to the Stage Manager, my partner in crime (see my previous posts about bananas foster http://bourbonandcanal.tumblr.com/post/20015712577/bananas-foster-my-humanities-course-had-a and making the video project http://bourbonandcanal.tumblr.com/post/23118272631/i-hope-youre-hungry-after-you-watch-that-video). I have referred to my friend throughout this blog as my "partner in crime" so that she remained anonymous.
New Orleans: A Pot of Gumbo
I hope you're hungry after you watch that video. Sometimes when you create a project you want to tell the story behind it. Unfortunately, there was no time on presentation day for me to discuss my thought process behind the creation of this digital story.
I started writing it the day after the Humanities Forum at UMBC called "Approaching Authenticity: Locating Living Cultural Memories, Identities, and Traditions in the 21st Century". You'll notice in my narration that I am very careful about my definition of "authenticity" because of this discussion on what exactly authenticity means. I'll admit that the Maryland Traditions Humanities Forum was not as enjoyable as, for example, a short film; I decided to apply the concept of authenticity to something everyone enjoys: Food. Especially Creole cuisine. The Humanities Forum is available here via UMBCtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkReECECvzo&feature=plcp.
Creating the digital story was much more difficult than writing an essay. Instead arranging my research an analyzing it with words on a page, I wrote a script and attached images to make my research more accessible. Not only did I need to write about it, I wrote with the intention of speaking -- something to which I am definitely not accustomed. I practiced on my partner in crime (see my previous post about bananas foster http://bourbonandcanal.tumblr.com/post/20015712577/bananas-foster-my-humanities-course-had-a) which, mind you, is very different from peer editing. By the time I got to the video editing process, I ended up cutting and splicing some elements of my narration to improve the flow. I also added audio transitions to eliminate the awkward pauses in my dialogue. The background music is the instrumental version of Louis Armstrong's "Jeepers Creepers". I chose it because it was available on the Internet Archive here: http://archive.org/details/1920s-louisArmstrong-21-30, and because Louis Armstrong was instrumental in the jazz culture of New Orleans. Although my video didn't discuss jazz, it focused on the international nature of New Orleans culture. Using that song was a tribute to New Orleans' distinct African American heritage. I know my course was focused on New Orleans' sounds, but without a visual component, my audio would have been meaningless. Using Final Cut Express, I imported dozens of .psd images and even a .gif of a rotating globe. That rotating globe was especially difficult and involved taking a screen recording (which I didn't know was possible) on a Mac. I found most of my images on Google Image Search, so it didn't surprise me that many of my classmates ended up using similar images in their digital stories. One important image was the aerial shot of New Orleans and its suburbs, which you should recognize as the background to this blog.
Lac des Allemands location.
Image source:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0034425711002768
While I was working on my map of the origins of New Orleans food, I was surprised to learn that New Orleanian cuisine actually has German origins. I am mostly interested in the history behind certain foods considered "authentic" to New Orleanian cuisine. For example, sausage, so significant in modern gumbo recipes, was actually introduced by German settlers in the 1800s during the peak of German immigration. I was able to include a surprising amount of information on my map and in my corresponding digital story. (Here's a summary, for those of you who who unfortunately can't see my map: The Germans quickly discovered that the swamplands were unsuitable for agriculture. So, they moved their community to the Cote des Allemands, the German Coast, [aka Lac des Allemands or Lake of the Germans] twenty miles away. They supplied produce for the growing city since the Compaigne des Indes encouraged German and Swiss farmers to immigrate to Louisiana.)
I didn't know any of this history before researching for my New Orleans class final projects, but now I am glad that I did. This research definitely got me interested in possibly visiting New Orleans in the future. I know some of my classmates are planning a hypothetical road trip/train trip to New Orleans from our university in Baltimore.
Basically, the history of New Orleans is inextricable from its history of food and its history of international immigration. The Germans came because the early French settlers needed farmers; they were unaccustomed to Native American Choctaw cuisine. In the 1700s, before the peak of German immigration, John Law promoted his land holdings in Germany; those farmers who survived the voyage fed the struggling colonial city and introduced the accordion to Cajun music. (Which reminds me -- New Orleans' history is closely tied to the history of music. Just look at my previous posts about zydeco, jazz, and songs referencing New Orleans). When German immigration peaked in the mid-1800s, those who didn't continue moving west remained in New Orleans. They left a lasting legacy of the Grunewald Hotelm where the Sazerac, a well-known New Orleanian cocktail, became famous (renamed the Roosevelt Hotel after WWI). Most draymen (drivers of a dray, a low, flat-bed wagon without sides, pulled generally by horses or mules) were German, and they additionally left behind many bakeries, breweries, and beer gardens.
Information source:
www.neworleansonline.com/neworleans/multicultural/multiculturalhistory/german.html
A Walk on the Wild Side - and the Depression in the South
On one of the first days of class, our seminar discussed A Walk on the Wild Side by Nelson Algren. Looking back on last January, it was an interesting introduction to New Orleans for someone who had only a basic background in the context of United States history. As someone who is interested in the historical side of literature, I found the context of A Walk on the Wild Side especially intriguing.It was written in the mid-1950s and targeted the Baby Boom middle class. It painted a picture of the 1930s Depression in the Deep South. The fringes of society it showed were "exotic" and "spicy", and it would have been considered risque for the 1950s. In my opinion, it exposes the underbelly of New Orleans and intentionally makes the readers uncomfortable with the problems perpetuating in New Orleans and its surroundings, especially because Dove had to take desperate measures to survive. Algren addresses the value of education and access to education in the 1930s. The target audience in the 1950s had already lived through the Depression and assumed that they knew about it -- but only two decades later, the readers were forced to accept the realization that the Depression in New Orleans was nothing like what they expected.
U.S. Deputy Marshals escort 6-year-old Ruby Bridges from William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans in November 1960. The first grader was the only black child enrolled in the school.
This photograph was taken over half a century ago. When I think of the story of Ruby Bridges, I sometimes forget that her story doesn't only belong to the history of integration; it belongs to the history of New Orleans. Growing up so far from New Orleans, I was prone to contextualizing her story with that of the Little Rock Nine, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the rest of the Civil Rights Movement. Taking a class on New Orleans helped me focus on the city itself. William Frantz Elementary School is located in the Upper 9th Ward on North Galvez Street, very much a part of New Orleans. The Times Picayune called her an "icon of New Orleans integration" -- not just United States integration. She was the first black person to attend public school in New Orleans. Her brother was shot and killed on the streets of New Orleans in 1993, so she went back to her old elementary school again to bring her nieces and nephews the terrible news. In 2009, she sat on the school steps, with William Frantz Elementary boarded up behind her in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. She wanted to reopen the school under her name with a focus on social justice. Although the school reopened in 2010, the mayor decided not to rename the school after her.
Rose, Chris. "Ruby Bridges, an Icon of New Orleans Integration, Will Witness Another Milestone 50 Years Later." NOLA.com. The Times Picayune, 18 Jan. 2009. Web. 15 May 2012. <http://blog.nola.com/news_impact/print.html?entry=/2009/01/olibbp104plv2lvcrtop1_0119aaa0.html>.
Chang, Cindy. "Landrieu News Release Was Wrong: Mayor Did Not Rename William Frantz Elementary." NOLA.com. The Times-Picayune, 20 May 2010. Web. 15 May 2012. <http://blog.nola.com/education_impact/print.html?entry=/2010/05/landrieu_press_release_was_wro.html>
You said, I don't know where I'm going
I think I'll head to New Orleans for awhile
God I'm so tired of crying but I can't hold back my tears
Oh, I have to know, can a city give a man it's heart, does a city have a hand to hold?
Tell me, what you offer him that I don't
New Orleans
A view of New Orleans from a different perspective…
Reblogged from a classmate
Gentrification
Reblogged from two of my classmates
Louisiana
Attention to Detail. New Orleans’ Famous Wrought Iron Cornstalk Fence; French Quarter
The Sounds of Garifuna Music and Dance (as promised)
As is to be expected, Garifuna music is heavily influenced by West African rhythm of dance and drums. It also reflects a lengthy oral tradition of call and response as well as ancestor worship. Latin American and Caribbean music is characterized by sentiment and motion; Garifuna music is about events, rituals, and concerns. Dancing and music is fundamental at birthday celebrations, rites of passage, festivals, sports bars, and a more reverent version in church.
Garifuna musical instruments are usually hollow drums, including tenor drums, counter-rhythmic drums, and bass drums. Most of their music is percussion based, so most of their other instruments involve scratching, beating, or tapping. They use gourd maracas filled with dried seeds, similar to other Latin American customs. Sometimes they stretch wires over the hollow drums to add a buzzing noise similar to West African music. Most instruments are made from natural objects (other than bottle percussion) such as turtle shells, wood, and seashells. There are variety of music styles, with differing rhythms and expressions depending on the event and time of year.
In New Orleans, the Garifuna have dances especially for the winter holidays. The New Orleanian Garifuna people follow a man dressed in coconut leaves (the Guarine) , who dances a traditional dance called the punta. The Pastorales, a female choir singing songs about rural Garifuna life, join him. Flandigano, another male member of the celebration, dances through the streets on stilts. Garifuna in New Orleans also have similar death rites to their counterparts, displaying food for the deceased. Family members sing, dance, and find comfort around the displayed food.
Serrano, Amy. "From Punta to Chumba: Garifuna Music and Dance in New Orleans". Louisiana Living Traditions. http://www.louisianafolklife.org/LT/Articles_Essays/garifuna2.html
So I stumbled upon the cooking section of the library today and I don’t think I’m ever going to leave.
When my classmate is done with it, I'm going to have to borrow this cookbook from the UMBC Library! Thanks for pointing out that we actually have this.
Migrations:
1950s-1960s
-Garifuna to New Orleans as merchants
-Some stayed in racially segregated areas of New Orleans mixed in with Vietnamese and AfricanAmericans -Others left to New Orleans to New York where there was a large Puerto Rican community
1990s -Descendants of Garifuna from New York ‘came back’ to New Orleans
-Increase in Garifuna community in Houston & Los Angeles
2003-2005 (break)
Post-Katrina 2005-2007
-Garifuna evacuees to Houston with previous Garifuna community
Leave it to the people of Tumblr to expand my New Orleans vocabulary. I'd never even heard of the Garifuna people until five minutes ago. I did some research on the origins of the Garifuna and found that Dr. Michelle Forbes at the University of Missouri conducted a dissertation on this very topic. She presents four possible origins stories, including one unlikely tale that they came from Atlantis, and here is my interpretation (her work is available here: http://www.garifunaresearch.com/garifunahistory.html):
Garifuna (plural Garinagu) people, also known as the Black Caribs, have three plausible origin stories. One is that they are descended from African slaves from an overturned 17th-century Spanish slaving ship bound for the New World as well as the native Central Americans that greeted them. Another is that they arrived in the Caribbean centuries before the Spanish as part of their vast trading network. Finally, another theory holds that they arrived as early as the 1500s. This makes sense, because the French, English, and Dutch traders and empires all laid claim to the Caribbean at that time.
Attached is a timeline of the Garifuna peoples' connections with New Orleans.
In the 1950s and 1960s, the Garifunas were increasingly marginalized by the struggling Honduran government. New Orleans, already a major trader with Honduras, was the natural choice for their new home after the United States federal government offered them incentives. Most Garifunas in New Orleans now reside in ethnic enclaves in the east, the central city, and uptown. In the U.S. census, they prefer not to identify themselves as African American or Hispanic because they are both. In the aftermath of Katrina, many did not return but many more replaced them. The Garifuna have their own distinct musical and linguistic heritage which has been preserved due to their relative isolation in the greater New Orleans area. (source: http://www.louisianafolklife.org/LT/Articles_Essays/garifuna.html)
I am very curious about their music and I will blog about that later.
