The New Orleans Carnival is descended from ancient religious rites of the Greek and Latin World. Ovid described the Greek shepherds of Arcadia who, five thousand years ago, celebrated a spring festival in hopes of better pastures and the remission of sins. —Henri Schindler, Mardi Gras in New Orleans, 1997. I was reading the...
This past weekend (27 degrees at dawn) I was invited to ride along with some commercial crabbers. Freezing hijinks ensued.
There’s some more Tut stuff I ran across after my previously posted article on E. John Bullard and NOMA’s coup of an exhibit back in 1977 of The Treasures of Tutankhamun. Just a couple of photos: my parent’s still have the exhibition catalog, which I snapped a pic of at Thanksgiving; and, this photo...
I was lucky enough to be invited to preview Furnishing Louisiana: Creole and Acadian Furniture, 1735-1835, the latest book from the Historic New Orleans Collection. It’s been in the works for over 30 years now, as furniture collectors (and scholars) Jack Holden and Pat Bacot, along with photographer Jim Zeitz, began documenting just about...
Louis Prima rose up out of New Orleans and tore through the entertainment world for nearly fifty years. Saturday, Dec. 4, saw Prima getting the attention he’s deserved from the city that he tirelessly promoted as he performed all over the world. New Orleans Musical Legends Park is a little nook of sorts at...
Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Willie Dixon, Son House, Howlin’ Wolf and Elmore James were some of the most influential musicians the world has ever seen. Along with many other bluesmen from the Mississippi Delta country, their music formed the foundation for what became rock ‘n roll, the American music that took over the...