The Krewe of Hermes floats are designed in the classic style by Henri Schindler.

On Friday, as always, Hermes and Le Krewe D’etat rolled Uptown. The weather was sketchy but the showers held off most of the evening. We caught the parades at Magazine and Napoleon, where Mardi Gras guru Arthur Hardy was there, doing parade spots with reporter Siemny Chhuon, who was enjoying her first Mardi Gras.

Arthur Hardy and Siemny Chhuon get ready to report on Friday's parades for WDSU.

Krewe D’Etat didn’t disappoint, the satirical theme this year was “D’Etat’s Wild World of Sports.” The Krewe’s “Dancin’ Darlin’s” performed as the LSU Turf Munchers, skewering LSU coach Les Miles in advance of a float doing the same that was entitled “Two-Minute Thrills.” An unlikely cast of characters caught the sports-themed roasting at the Dictator’s hands; Bobby Jindal (“Featherweight”), Brett Favre (“Pocket Pool”), Lil’ Wayne and Edwin Edwards. (No float pics this year, I only had the cell phone camera. Maybe NOLAnotes has some to share? But I see Uptown Messenger has some, as does Liprap’s Flickr, along with Muses and Hermes parade pics). New Krewe D’etat throws included krewe logo blinking rings and bracelets.

Le Krewe D'etat's new blinky skull ring.

Marching on…

Saturday all hell broke loose weather-wise. Endymion had been canceled and re-scheduled for Sunday night, to parade Uptown after Bacchus. The weather was great Sunday, and after a long odyssey (is that redundant?) trying many different routes to get to Point B on the other side of Napoleon and Magazine, I parked and walked the mile or so Laurel St. near Tipitina’s. Armed with the big gun camera, I continued my yearly quest to capture some of the motion and action of the Mardi Gras night parade. I think I did o.k. See for yourself.

[Show as slideshow]

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 Times Picayune recap of the annual Caliphs of Cairo bal masque (Caliphs does not parade). I had assumed this was an affair having nothing to do with the paranoia of Glenn Beck over Egypt’s revolution being the first step in establishing a Muslim/Communist one-world government, what he called a “Caliphate.” But after I read this description of Caliphs, I’m thinking I could be wrong. I doubt that Beck is a student of Carnival customs, but if he was serious about rooting out Caliphate cells within U.S. borders, he might want to start in New Orleans, where there is a Caliphate whose members only meet hidden behind masks and the identity of its leaders kept completely secret:

Caliphs of Cairo

The title assumed by former sultans proclaimed investiture with absolute authority in all matters of state. The Caliphs governed in the capital of Egypt for centuries and their descendants in the valley of the Nile ceremoniously observe the traditions of ancient Cairo.

The Caliphs of Cairo, successor of Mohammed, made their appearance in the Carnival world in 1937, where they have introduced a series of realistic spectacles and scenic triumphs, with glamorous courts of beauteous maidens.
–Arthur Burton La Cour, New Orleans Masquerade. La Cour’s 1952 book is the definitive guide to the early history of our carnival krewes.

Beck paranoia aside—I think he’d get thrown off track by the “realistic spectacles and scenic triumphs” not to mention “courts of beauteous maidens”—Caliphs is a serious organization that has been around for almost 75 years now. (For more on Caliph’s, see Ryan’s posts here and here.) Although the krewe chooses a king and queen, maids, princesses and pages, as do parading krewes, Caliph’s entire carnival activity is limited to a ball. As with many of the old-line krewes, all the members mask, the king’s identity is kept secret and the ball is a specialized production known as a bal masque; a masquerade where the participants ceremoniously enact scenes based on a particular tableau, or theme.

Caliphs’ first tableau back in 1937 was “Joloco, the Rainbow God” (you can try to Google it, but I can’t find anything on Joloco). The Times Picayune described this year’s theme:

The Caliphs of Cairo staged the organization’s annual bal masque Saturday in the Royal Tent at the New Orleans Country Club, presenting a tableau depicting the Battle of Vienna in 1683, when King Jan III Sobieski, king of Poland-Lithuania, rescued Vienna from the invading Ottoman Turks. The sultan’s grand Vizier, Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Pasha, had marched 150,000 Janissaries into Austria. The sultan had threatened death to Holy Roman Emperor Leopold, who fled to Passan with his court. Fortuitously for Leopold and the Viennese, several months earlier, King Jan had signed the Treaty of Warsaw, agreeing that he would come to Leopold’s aid if he were attacked by the Turks. Beseeched by Pope Innocent XI, King Jan Marched on Vienna with 80,000 men, Hearing the thundering charge of his winged husaria down the mountainside, the Turks retreated in panic and were defeated.
–Times-Picayune, February 6, 2011.

It goes on to explain some notable pastries were created to commemorate this battle: the croissant (symbolizing the defeated Turks’ crescent moon flag) and bagel (representing a stirrup, the symbol of King Jan’s cavalry).

Seeing this reminded me, to paraphrase Dorothy, that, on so many different levels, we’re not in Kansas. We never were in Kansas, or any where near Kansas.

In which diverse local habits, some of ancient origins, are enumerated, leading to the suggestion that everything in New Orleans may not be changing after all.
– S. Frederick Starr, introduction to Chapter 3: Habits. New Orleans Unmasqued. 1985.

So I say New Orleans’ Mardi Gras is the last bastion of civilization. Where else would groups of everyday people (alright, some may well be filthy rich. But I know several members of krewes like Caliphs who, although college graduates, some with professional degrees, are basically working stiffs at this point in their careers) put aside time and money to plan a good old-fashioned bal masque?

Imagine the committee meeting.  “Let’s see. We’ve done Joloco. We’ve done Cindarella, the marriage feast of Alexander the Great, the reception of the Marquis de Vaudreil at New Orleans, the Three Muskateers, the return of Marco Polo to Venice, the Bard of Avon and even Fiesta, South of the Border [all actual tableau from Caliph's early years]. What to do, what to do? Wait—y’all remember the Battle Vienna in 1683, you know, with the Vizier and the Polish winged cavalry that ensured the place of Christianity in the western world and gave us pastries? Let’s re-enact that next year!”

Starr’s quote really puts my whole thesis in a nutshell. We take the time and make the effort to maintain our local habits, that are ancient in origin, to make sure New Orleans’ core really won’t change, despite all the forces at work on its exterior—Katrina destruction/reconstruction, the new hospital’s re-working of Mid City and even recent observations regarding the creeping influx of European-inspired (but thoroughly mid-American in origin) “nouvelle” cuisine on the city’s restaurant scene.

Starr goes further and explores the role of allegory in Carnival, noting even suburban krewes might have such distinguished themes as “Tales of Gilgamesh,” “The World’s Worships” or “Tales of Josephus.” He notes that one year, Comus (when it still paraded) had a theme of “Ophidian Lore.”

To save a trip to the Encyclopedia Britannica [note lack of Google in 1985], this refers to the suborder ophidia, which comprises all snakes. Hence, Comus produced floats on “Eden,” “Aesculapius,” “Dumbala,” “Abraxas” and “Python”…

Now imagine hundreds of potbellied rednecks from Mississippi, North Florida or Manhattan lining up to watch some New Orleans businessmen represent this all allegorically. Picture businessmen anywhere dressing in outlandish costumes in order to present samples of Ophidian Lore to the masses, and paying every penny of the costs to do so. It staggers the imagination.

Which is precisely what Mardi Gras is all about. Beneath the superficial vulgarity, it is a poetic festival steeped in the exquisite high art of allegory.

Now, Starr is spot-on in his observations, and the thought of rednecks from Manhattan seems novel. But sometimes, the outsider over-thinks things. I prefer Bunny Matthews‘ take on allegory and Carnival themes, as channeled through Nat’ly Broussard, who in one devastating cartoon skewers all sides. Nat’ly, who you have to imagine, is simply talking on the phone:

Vic? Nuh uh. He’s at a Krewe meetin’…yeah…nuh uh…dey decidin’ on da theme fo’ da truckfloat—eithuh “Greek Gods” or “Salute to Soaps”—so I guess I’m gonna be Aphrodite or Susan Lucci—one of dem! Rite—talk to ya later…

How do you plan on celebrating our little spring festival? I’m taking inspiration from Henri Schindler’s ancient Greeks and continue my quest for greener pastures and the remission of sins.

Addendum—Looka’ dis-Bunny Matthews takes you on a guided tour of A Carnival Ball In Municipal Auditorium.

The result is a comprehensive guide to early Louisiana furniture with over 550 pages and 1000 images. I’m not a furniture collector or scholar, but love the book for its comprehensive coverage of our history and culture as reflected in our natively-crafted decorative arts. Chapters on early cabinet makers, woods and hardware not only talk about the “nuts and bolts” of furniture making, but tell the stories of early Louisianians as their country changed from colonial French to Spanish, then to American control, influence and, finally, statehood. And it’s all beautifully illustrated with period maps and images in addition to the photographs of furniture.

The colonial times are interesting, as we forget that Louisiana once encompassed the entirety what is now the United States west of the Appalachians.

"La Louisiane et Pays Voisins" by Jacques Nicolas Bellin, 1763; The Historic New Orleans Collection, 1975.35.

Items of early Louisiana furniture are rare finds. Fire destroyed many a plantation home along the river over the years and most of the city of New Orleans—twice—in 1788 and 1794. Another hazard, flooding, is illustrated by this engraving of a levee breach near Bonnet Carré from 1871.

"The Landing Near Bonnet Carré" by Alfred Rudolph Waud, 1871; The Historic New Orleans Collection, gift of Harold Schilke and Boyd Cruise, 1953.100ii. Note the armoires and tables being rescued on the right.

Some of the stories are tales of intense research and detective work. City directories of the late 18th and early 19th centuries list many names that have the occupation of menuisier or ébéniste; cabinet and furniture makers and inlay specialists; however,  correlating a piece of furniture to a particular maker is often difficult as pieces were rarely signed. Vermin, mold and all the other hazards of a hot and humid climate destroyed paper labels.

To a certain extent, the story of a craftsman dubbed “The Butterfly Man” (for a signature device he used to join side panels) and the extant furniture attributed to him, make his armoire the star of the book.

Creole-style inlaid armoire, attributed to the “Butterfly Man,” 1810–1830, from the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Robert J. Patrick, New Orleans; photo by Jim Zietz.

Coming out of the collection from the Houmas House plantation in 2003, this armoire set a record for Louisiana furniture when it sold for $140,000. The detailed account of the experts who examined the armoire’s construction and style of its inlaid decorations in an attempt to identify its maker is one of the book’s engrossing mystery stories (in a geeky, research-y kind of way; not necessarily one for Scooby and the gang).

History buffs will also be interested in the account of Creole and Creole-style furniture found in the Mississippi Upper Valley—in Missouri, Indiana and Illinois, for example—and the appendix listing furniture makers found in early city directories and newspaper advertisements.

Furniture buffs can spend countless hours perusing the catalog that makes up the bulk of the book. Photos and descriptions of every piece of furniture the authors could get their hands on are displayed in sections divided by armoires, chairs, bedsteads, buffets, tables, utilitarian pieces and the furniture of the Upper Valley.

The book is available for pre-ordering online through the Historic New Orleans Collection’s website, and I assume at the Collection’s gift shop at 533 Royal St. when it arrives (which, they say, should be sometime next week (of Dec. 13). Check the website for updated information or call the shop at 598-7147.

The Collection’s Royal St. gallery now has an exhibit of Mignon Faget’s work throughout the years. The research center at 410 Chartres St. features an exhibit of early Louisiana furniture from the Magnolia Mound plantation in Baton Rouge and an exhibit of photographs documenting life in New Orleans’ 7th Ward.

Update: I mentioned artist Rolland Golden’s work in a previous post. Fourteen of the 32 or so works he painted in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and exhibited at NOMA were acquired by the Historic New Orleans Collection and New Orleans Museum of Art.

This isn’t new news, but I thought anyone who’s interested should know they are on display at the Collection’s Williams Research Center. It’s free and open to the public, so if you’re wandering around the quarter think about popping in. There’s the furniture, the paintings and the photography to peruse. While you’re there you can take a peek into the reading room upstairs. It’s an impressive space, the former courtroom of the building’s original incarnation as a police precinct and municipal courthouse. The Williams Research Center is open Tue-Sat and the gallery and gift shop on at 533 Royal from Tue-Sun. Both are free.

Preeminent bluesman Robert Johnson was dubbed “King of the Delta Blues.” Johnson’s early recordings influenced legions of musicians, both pure bluesmen and rock ‘n rollers who followed him. He is the stuff of legend, allegedly selling his soul to the devil in exchange for blues prowess. The story is he made his deal with the devil at the crossroads of Hwys. 61 and 49 south of Clarksdale. Johnson’s song “Cross Road Blues” (which doesn’t address any satanic deal-making) has been covered by over 30 artists. The most famous version is Eric Clapton’s arrangement “Crossroads” performed by Cream.

So what made the Delta region (not to be confused with the Mississippi River delta found where the river meets the Gulf) the cradle of blues? The region covers (according to the Wiki) north west Mississippi, along the river from Vicksburg (Willie Dixon’s birthplace) in the south to Memphis in the north, and east to the Yazoo River. It’s the ancient flood plain of the Mississippi River and seems even flatter than the swampy ground surrounding New Orleans, if that could be possible. Thousands of years of the river’s meandering and levee jumping  have tortured, scoured and scarred as well as flattened the land. Louisiana and Arkansas have their own Delta regions encompassed by the alluvial flood plain on the west side of the river with similar agricultural and cultural background notes (musicians Jerry Lee Lewis and Conway Twitty from the Louisiana Delta; Johnny Cash the Arkansas Delta).

Satellite view of a portion of the Delta country illustrates the tortured scarring inflicted by the river over millennia.

Cotton was king here. Many of the blues artists came from sharecropper families or worked at one time or another in the fields. It was oppressive work performed by poor people who weren’t treated much better than the slaves they descended from. The Delta country was the scene of much bloodshed and violence during the civil rights era, and it’s no wonder that following WWII returning GIs fled the area in search of better living in cities like Chicago, where blues recordings by Chess Records made the likes of Muddy Waters famous and paved the way for Chuck Berry and the rock ‘n rollers. The movie Cadillac Records provides a well-produced but fictionalized account of the Chess Records story.

Hwy. 61 (Airline Hwy. in the New Orleans area) starts in Louisiana and ends in Minnesota (where Bob Dylan is from, his album Highway 61 Revisited is a classic), following the river most of the way. It cuts right through the Delta and is the route I take to get to Arkansas every Thanksgiving.

Traveling through the Delta from Vicksburg to Greenville (where there is a bridge that crosses into Arkansas). I jump off Hwy. 61 on to Miss. Hwy. 1 where 61 meets the town of Rolling Fork, home town of Muddy Waters himself (links to DeltaBlues.net, a great resource on the Delta’s byways and juke joints).

It’s always been the week of Thanksgiving that I take my trip through the Delta, and the weather is usually cool and clear. The fields have been harvested and tufts of leftover cotton gather up along side of the road like mini-snowdrifts. Looking at all the fields and the run-down shacks and shanties, silos and cotton gins alongside the road and I can tell I wouldn’t want to be working outside in the summer around here.

The Delta fields stretch on forever.

It’s not without inherent beauty, though. I’ve always been struck by it, the vast emptiness of the fields, the rusted-roof shacks and the occasional splendid plantation home. I’m not the only one; scores of photographers and artists have tried to capture the Delta’s essence. Mississippi public radio was playing an interview with artist Rolland Golden while I was driving through the Delta. He talked about the Delta scenes he’s painted for decades and remembered the days when, as a boy, his family lived in Grenada, Miss. and his father would take him on drives through the Delta country. Some of Rolland’s Delta work can be seen here, here, here and here. His latest exhibit of Mississippi River paintings is on display in Jackson now.

I love the Algiers ferry pictures here and here, he said they were painted recently from photos he took in the ’60s, when, as an artist raising his young family in the French Quarter, he and his wife and kids would occasionally ride the free ferry back and forth on weekend outings. The free ferry ride is still something people enjoy today; being on the river amid the ships travelling to and from foreign ports, enjoying the New Orleans skyline that, in Rolland’s paintings, is bare but for the cathedral and Hotel Monteleone as his photos pre-dated the CBD building boom of the 70s.

I always forget to pack a tripod and camera when traveling through the Delta country, but listening to Rolland on that beautiful afternoon  inspired me to at least get some shots with my phone.

Crop dusters in their hangers along Highway 1.

Grain silos in the Delta country along Hwy. 1.

Elmwood Cemetery outside of Rolling Fork.

Now, if I’d known
They’d line up just to see him
I’d trade in all my money
And bought me a museum
From Steve Martin’s blockbuster hit of the 70′s, King Tut, inspired by the exhibition touring America

I remember it being towards the end of King Tut’s NOLA reign, it was either in the fall or winter; I remember it being cold. Maybe that’s why I also remember not having to wait too terribly long in line to get in—or maybe my dad had bought a museum membership that year because members were admitted immediately—unlike many who had waited 8 or more hours for admission at some points during the exhibition.

The museum had been transformed into a tomb-like interior, they had constructed plywood paths taking you from from priceless artifact to priceless artifact, ultimately leading to the pharaoh’s solid-gold death mask. The sight of that mask up on a pedestal in its glass display case still comes to my mind when I hear the word “priceless,”  no matter in what context the word has been uttered.

Now, when I die
Now don’t think I’m a nut
Don’t want no fancy funeral
Just one like ole King Tut
(Steve Martin)

I’m telling you all this not just because of the impact it made on me (I rattle on like Grandpa Simpson every time I’m in front of NOMA—”King Tut came here and they painted this whole drive blue. Blue, I tells ya!!!”—to anyone within earshot) but because it marked the first big blockbuster exhibition brought to NOMA after John Bullard became director in 1973. He’s now Director Emeritus, having passed on the reigns to Director Susan Taylor, a passionate art lover and veteran museum administrator.

I had a chance to talk to Mr. Bullard as NOMA was gearing up for its latest exhibition, Great Collectors/Great Donors (links to Doug McCash’s nola.com article for more details), the first of many to celebrate the museum’s centennial in 2011. He told me the story behind King Tut’s arrival in New Orleans in 1977.

Egyptian president Anwar Sadat was looking for some extra PR for his country during the time of the Camp David peace negotiations between Egypt and Israel. The exhibit was presented as a gift to the American people in honor of the U.S. Bicentennial. A New Orleans businessman had heard about Egypt’s plans, and the lobbying for New Orleans began.

Mr. Bullard recalled, “Verna Landrieu was head of the local bicentennial commission, so she got Moon [Mayor Moon Landrieu] to go to Washington, D.C. to see the Egyptian ambassador and we had our congressional delegation going to see him as well. They did want a specific geographic distribution—Washington, New York, Chicago, Seattle, Los Angeles—and then they wanted somewhere in the south. I was somewhat skeptical this would happen; surely it would go to Houston or Dallas or Atlanta, where they had a bigger resident population.

“We made a good case, we talked about the two great delta cities in the world, and the Mississippi and the Nile, and they selected us. That was before we expanded in 1990 so the museum was not quite half the size it is now. We didn’t sell tickets in advance, so we had bleachers for people to wait in, and sometimes it was an 8-hour wait.”

The exhibit’s impact was enormous, and had far-reaching economic consequences for the city. “In a normal year before Tut, we would have had maybe a 100,000 visitors,” said Mr. Bullard. “In the four months of Tut we had 900,000 visitors—it was a transforming experience for the museum. It made the politicians and businessmen realize that a big exhibition could generate as much money as a Super Bowl, over a longer period of time, and with upscale visitors.”

Many big exhibits were to come. During his tenure, NOMA’s permanent collection expanded from just under 5,000 items to over 35,000 today. The latest exhibit, and the first to celebrate the museum’s 100th year, is called Great Collectors/Great Donors.  It is a history of the museum as seen through the works of art donated by patrons since NOMA opened as the Isaac Delgado Museum of Art. The name change to New Orleans Museum of Art came in 1971.

Mr. Bullard gives a thorough run-through of those great donors in the museum’s publication Arts Quarterly. (Click to download a pdf). It’s a fascinating tale that reaffirms our city’s interest and support for the arts.

John Bullard talks about the upcoming NOMA centennial and the Great Collectors/Great Donors exhibit. In the background, New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu is either contemplating the occasion or planning on whose ass to kick next at City Hall.

Mr. Bullard walks us through Great Collectors/Great Donors. Looking on are two delightful ladies, Margarita Bergen (left) and Wendy Rodrigue. Margarita writes for NewOrleans.com and is in attendance at every event I have ever covered. Wendy is a NOMA board member and is married to George Rodrigue, whose work warranted its own mega-exhibition at NOMA back in 2008 (here is a post on the Blue Dog exhibit, and a little story about an encounter I had with Mr. Bullard then). She writes the blog Musings of an Artist's Wife, a must-read for any Blue Dog fan and a great place to see George's art, with the added bonuses of George's reminiscences about and Wendy's insight into the images he's produced over his career.

Mr. Bullard with what he said may be the rarest item in the museum, a Hawaiian god collected during Capt. Cook's ill-fated third visit to the islands.

The exhibit runs until January 23 and is a great chance to see all the best works that are in NOMA’s permanent collection. It’s a visual telling of how NOMA grew by donation to donation over the last 100 years. Many of the items are often on loan to other museums, so go while you have the chance! Check NOMA100.com and  NOMA.org for events, times and admissions policies. It’s free from noon to 8pm on Wednesdays and always free for members, so that’s a great reason to join. Centennial exhibits and activities continue through 2011.

About five other people stopped in their tracks coming out of the store, whipping out their phones to document the brief-lived wonder.

Later, I noticed a lot of Twitter activity and decided to round up all the photos I could find. The pics link back to their original posts. Thanks everyone!

I wish I had taken this one, the winner if this were actually a contest, from @mattjparks, Rainbow Over Dome (my title):

Here’s the French Quarter view, from @LunaNola, @CallMeAlva and @winshuttle:

And downtown from @BrittanyHornets:

Over the river from the Algiers ferry from @SHarney:

And more, from @necs, @NCantarano, @BigadShaban and @marcadelman:

I guess I hadn’t paid much attention to it after I had copied it. Reading it now, it strikes me that they sure knew how to write an obit back then. I knew very little about him, as I had concentrated my research only on my direct line of ancestors on my father’s side.  But I learned a few things, and hope someone writes as well about me when the time comes.

The deceased at the time of his death was 65 years and 8 months old, and had been a resident of the city of New Orleans for over half a century. Born in the city of Paris, France, the deceased came to the Crescent City when quite a youth and soon entered the cotton business.
…

In all his business associations, the deceased was proven to be a man of the strictest commercial integrity, and as his experiences were grounded on close personal relations at home and abroad, it is not surprising that his work was always marked by gratifying  conclusions.

He was living at 1726 Carondolet at the time. Looking at the Google street view, that address is now a parking lot at the downtown riverside corner of Polymnia, surrounded by empty lots and abandoned buildings, your basic Central City shithole of an area.

That’s too bad; for he must have had a fine home. The obit notes:

The deceased’s home existence was particularly delightful. Himself a man of high artistic tastes, the deceased surrounded himself with all those elements that render domestic living additionally charming. Mr. _____ came from a distinguished ancestry, one of his uncles being a gallant soldier, a colonel in the French army, who died on the field of battle, and another an artist of note, whose works have frequently adorned the walls of the Louvre.

Some of the above information is incorrect. His father (my great-great-great grandfather), not his uncle—although there may have been an uncle in the military as well, there were many siblings—was a colonel in the French Army. He died not on the field of battle, but in Piraeus, Greece, of typhus en route to the Crimea in 1855.  There was an uncle, Amedee _____ who was an artist. Whether his work hung in the Louvre or not I don’t know, it’s quite possible. We do know some of his work is in the collection at Versailles, though, and we own a portrait he painted of who we believe to be either my great-great or great-great-great grandfather, in complete military regalia.

Which brings us to the title of today’s post. As if all of this very complimentery prose was not enough, the obituary writer added:

The deceased was personally a gentleman of the most charming character. He had all of the savoir faire of the old school about him, and was highly thought of socially.

Which leads me to a difficult conclusion. I’m going to have to write my own obituary, and adopt a lot of my great-great grand uncle Paul’s. Either that, or write something along the lines of Royal Tenenbaum’s fictional eptitaph:

Died Tragically Rescuing His Family From The Remains Of A Destroyed Sinking Battleship.

Any suggestions?

TALES OF THE COCKTAIL OPENING RECEPTION TO BE HELD AT THE NEWLY RESTORED ROOSEVELT HOTEL
TOAST OF THE EVENING TO OCCUR AT THE ORIGINAL SAZERAC BAR

NEW ORLEANS, LA—December 1, 2008 – Tales of the Cocktail, a cocktail and culinary festival celebrating the history and culture of dining and the cocktail in New Orleans, has chosen The Roosevelt New Orleans as the site of the July 8, 2009, opening-night reception for its seventh anniversary event.

Tales of the Cocktail runs through July 12, 2009.

The historic downtown New Orleans property, a Waldorf=Astoria Collection property shuttered since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, opened in 1893 as the Grunewald. In 1923, it was rebranded The Roosevelt in honor of President Theodore Roosevelt and retained its distinctive moniker until the hotel changed hands in 1965 and was renamed The Fairmont. The grand hotel will reopen in late spring 2009, reborn as a Waldorf=Astoria Collection® hotel.

The summer’s most spirited event, Tales of the Cocktail explores the history and contemporary life of the cocktail at various locations in the New Orleans French Quarter. The event welcomes celebrities, mixologists, chefs, authors and cocktail experts as presenters and special guests from around the globe for seminars, dinners and galas.  Top spirits names such as Dale DeGroff, Tony Abou-Ganim, Robert Hess and Kevin Brauch once again will take part in educating industry and consumers alike about the cocktail.

In more than a century of operation, The Roosevelt served as the backdrop for many historic events and often made history in its own right. Key among plans to restore the property to its previous grandeur and appeal will be the reopening of the hotel’s famed Blue Room and legendary Sazerac Bar. In the golden era of supper clubs from the 1930s to the 1960s, the Blue Room played host to some of the best-known names in entertainment and big bands – including Tony Bennett, Louis Armstrong and Sonny and Cher – as well as to elaborate floor shows. The Sazerac Bar, a Roosevelt landmark for decades, again will serve its signature Sazerac cocktail and Ramos Gin Fizz – both invented in New Orleans and made popular worldwide by The Roosevelt – among other delights.

“Hosting our opening night in conjunction with the newly restored Roosevelt is an honor,” said Tales of the Cocktail founder Ann Tuennerman. “Tales of the Cocktail celebrates the history of the cocktail, and what better way to introduce visitors to our city than with the city’s official cocktail, The Sazerac, at the original Sazerac Bar,”

The New Orleans Culinary and Cultural Preservation Society, a non-profit organization dedicated to raising funds to benefit hospitality industry members, produces Tales of the Cocktail annually. Its mission is to preserve the rich history of the restaurants and bars of New Orleans and the unique culture of dining and drinking famous to the city, while educating locals, visitors and the hospitality industry about this culinary heritage.

Tales of the Cocktail, a culinary and cocktail festival, allows the connoisseur or amateur to fully experience (taste, see and learn about) cocktail culture in New Orleans and around the world. The event’s annual components are Spirited Dinners, a Seminar Series, Cocktail Hour, Cocktail Luncheons, walking tours of the French Quarter, and classic and contemporary cocktail parties — all presented by the country’s hottest chefs, authors, bartenders and cocktail experts.

For more information on Tales of the Cocktail, visit the Web site at www.TalesoftheCocktail.com and register to receive email updates, or call 504-948-0511.

The artist I met is named Bernard Mattox. He paints, but most of his career he’s been a sculptor, working in ceramics. Here’s a shot of his studio, where he’s working on his latest painting.

He recommended I go to the Mint to see an installation by an artist who is from Covington, but works in Los Angeles now.

I already planned to go across the lake Saturday for a big meetup with Nolanotes and some other twitter people. It went really well. Leigh brought up Prospect.1 during lunch, and pointed out the maps they had distributed. Here is the map online, it’s a pretty big .pdf, but it has all the information for what’s installed citywide.

So we set out to the Mint. Bunch of artists there, the guy from Covington, Stephen G. Rhodes, had an interesting installation. Here’s the Times-Picayune’s review of it. It’s difficult to describe, pretty large scale, overwhelming almost. You’re inside of it, it’s like the aftermath of a large post-election party in a room full of video screens. Disney’s Hall of Presidents, ghost portraits, torn furniture, popped balloons, it’s wild. There were a lot of coins on the floor, loose change. I decided to take out some pockect change and throw it on the floor, too.

The art is spread out citywide. We followed the map from the Mint to the Lower Ninth, and hunted down two of the installations put in near where the levee broke there.

This one’s called Window and Ladder – Too Late for Help. It’s by Argentine artist Leandro Erlich.

That area’s still pretty barren. There was a refrigerator all busted up and moldy on the street in front of it. Whether it’s been there since August 29, 2005, or not, I don’t know. It could have been, but I somehow doubt, put there on purpose.

It’s the area where Brad Pitt’s Make It Right Foundation is building green homes for residents to return to the area. They’re different than what was in the area before, that’s for sure, but affordable and renewable, incorporating features like solar panels.

Here’s one that was across from another Prospect.1 installation.

The area is still pretty darn bleak, and full of odd sights. This could well have been considered an art installation anywhere else in the world. In New Orleans, it was just a motorcycle on a slab.

Will Smith’s streetcar is located at the Prytania Theatre. It features Stella and Stanley from Streetcar Named Desire. He added sponsors John and Gayle Gish to it as well. Will was at Tales selling his Mardi Gras krewe giclees. He also had a new line of burlesque girl paintings on hand for sale.

Also posted at StreetcarArt.com.

But first things first. Today’s kick-off event was Toast to Tales of the Cocktail in the Riverview Room of the Hotel Montleone. NOLA blogger Loki of Humid City and the Krewe of Chartreuse offered up the first ceremonial toast of the day, which was dedicated to the Sazerac cocktail’s enshrinement as New Orleans’ official cocktail.

Ann Teunnerman, founder of the New Orleans culinary and cocktail event, spoke this afternoon and went over some of the highlights of the five-day celebration. When Ann announced Tale’s revival of the Green Hour and return of absinthe to America, the crowd went wild.

I have been assigned to write a story about absinthe and New Orleans, so my attendance at the various Tales of the Cocktail events will be centered around those featuring the spirit. There are many, many other events taking place: seminars, symposia, luncheons, dinners, tours and tastings. Here is the listing and ticket information.

Today’s event was tasting of absinthes offered by Lucid, Marteau and La Fee.

That’s the money shot of the day: absinthe being prepared the old-fashioned way with an ice water drip from a fountain.

The Absinthe Museum of America, opening this Saturday, is located at 823 Royal Street and hosted today’s event. Many absinthe artifacts—absinthia to the collector—will be on display, including this still, the fountain and glasses below, and many spoons, old bottles and artwork.

Ted Breaux, a New Orleans native and a driving force behind absinthe’s return to America was on hand. He is the also the creator of Lucid and several other varieties at Jade Liqueurs, overseeing its production at the Combier distillery in France’s Loire valley.

Marteau is made by Gwydion Stone, founder of the Wormwood Society, which is dedicated to bringing absinthe back to its rightful place in cocktail culture.

A number of bloggers/twitterers were there this afternoon. Loki, John Martin of Off-Focus, Leisa, Mr. Gunn and Robert Peyton of Appetites braved the afternoon heat to attend. Here’s a photo of John, Mr. Gunn and Loki, I’m sorry I had to leave for dinner with my folks and didn’t get more people in the picture.

More from Tales later this week. There is another absinthe event Friday at the Montleone’s Carousel Bar. I’ll attend that and make another report.

So we basically played Mario Kart for the Wii all day. His grandparents bought him a telescope, and last night we went out to try to find the moon. The moon, alas, was not to rise until after midnight, so we looked at random stars.

The highlight of the trip was this giant frog painted on the I-10 overpass at Rayne, home of the Frog Festival, where we stopped for lunch on the way home.

It was raining pretty hard when I got off the Causeway. I thought that, over the sound of the rain and my windshield wipers, I could hear “Oh, the suckage!” being screamed from Nola’s way. But, surprise, the pop-up tent and covered porch were keeping everyone dry and happy, with not one lament from Nola’s mouth at all. Sun, who I had heard was sick, was being pushed happily by her daddy on her new swing, all the Nola/CS friend peeps digging away at mudbugs, beer, potatoes artichokes, etc.

I left to go hunt streetcars; post at StreetCarArt.com coming soon. Then off to NOMA for the Rodrigue exhibit. If you haven’t been to the New Orleans Museum of Art recently, you need to get down there. The Rodrique exhibit is over June 8, but there is still plenty to see. One thing is a newly-acquired collection of 30-some odd pieces, including a painting by Fairfield Porter, probably my favorite non-impressionist painter.

After looking at the Rodrigues (and there is more to him than just the Blue Dog, and, by the way, I was not a fan of the Blue Dog, but have a new understanding and respect for it now) I headed up to the 3rd floor. I’m glad I did. Besides myself and the security guard, the only other person up there was John Bullard, NOMA’s director. I’d met him before, during the Femme Femme Femme exhibition. He’s a very convivial guy, a necessary trait when most of your job consists of raising funds. I told him I thought it was a great idea to keep the museum open all night, he said it’s been something museums in Dallas and other cities had been experimenting with to some success. They’re talking about doing it once a month, maybe on the last Wednesday of the month, to stay open to midnight. It’s a good idea; hotel, restaurant and hospital workers who otherwise wouldn’t get to see it come in then. It was a busy day for NOMA, too. He said they already had 2000 visitors on Saturday, and expected more Sunday.

After congratulating John on the exhibit, I mosied on down to the 2nd floor (the 3rd, by the way, is home to a small but impressive collection of Asian, African, South American and Native American indigenous art) where I was met full on with a sight inspiring the title of this piece–an exhibit of art from the Historic New Orleans Collection and NOMA called New Orleans: A Sense of Place.

Paintings, books, pieces of decorative art, including silverware from New Orleans smiths, all unmistakably NOLA creations. There are paintings of buildings and the city from the 1800′s and contemporary views, like a stunning, huge, painting of the Quarter, the docks and the Marigny as viewed from the top of the Jax Brewery–unfortunately I didn’t have anything to write with or I’d be telling you who the artist was.

In the middle of the room is a collection of books, old New Orleans classics from the Collection. Books by Lyle Saxon, Grace King, Kate Chopin, Lafcadio Hearn and George Washington Cable are on display. But at the top of the display is Ignatius Reilly peering out from the first-edition cover over the room, scimitar raised high, hunting cap on head, cockatoo perched on shoulder. Wow.

I went back downstairs where the crowd was growing. George Rodrigue and his family were hanging out, and as I walked out the door I ran into the person who started my day, Adam Acquistapace, absinthe dealer. I need to go buy a bottle for myself soon.

You see, there was also a public art project in San Francisco, called Hearts in San Francisco. It’s been over since 2005, when most of the hearts were removed from around town and placed with their owners. There are a couple left, like the one above in Union Square. It was just today, going through the pictures, that I actually read the plaque.

Yep, that’s Tony Bennett’s, Mr. “I Left My Heart in San Francisco,”‘ heart that he painted and presented to the city to kick off the project.

There’s more on “A Streetcar Named Inspire” at StreetcarArt.com. The first streetcars are being placed, including Dennis Procopio’s “Hands Across the Water” at 909 Poydras.

Thousands of French came to New Orleans after the 1803 revolution in Haiti. Thousands more came in 1809, increasing the population of the city by almost one third in one year. My ancestor was a lawyer, and became a judge in the city. He speculated in real estate, overextending his credit after building some beautiful French Quarter buildings, which his creditors took over in the 1840s.

My sister has been living on Royal Street since Katrina tore up her condo building on the lake; the first of our family to call the Quarter home since the 1860s. She’s in a house built in 1832, across from the Lalaurie house Nick Cage now owns. My ancestor built a fine mansion 4 doors down Royal, and another large building on Governor Nicholls right off of Royal. The house my sister’s in would have been familiar to him, until he lost everything and moved to lesser quarters on Bayou Road.

Anyway, that’s some of the history that makes the Quarter special to me, and the FQF my favorite fest of all.

I started the day by meeting Nola and CS at the Napoleon House, where Nola could drink Pimm’s Cups all day long.

Under the watchful eye of the little dictator, I downed an 11:30 a.m. shot of Jameson in Ashley Morris’ honor; even though I never met the guy I’ve learned much about him in the past week. Sharing his fondness for the Saints and Jameson, I’m sure we would have gotten along quite well.

More of the Napoleon House, where the bartender could not sling the Pimm’s Cups fast enought. The place screams New Orleans atmosphere.

We went down the street towards Jackson Square, where we ran into a friend of CS and Nola who had just gotten the neatest tattoo.

This is a girl, not a New Orleans native, who stayed through Katrina and survived in the wild west days of the city during the flood and aftermath. I can’t wait to spend more time talking with her about her adventures.

And then the fest. I’ll spare you all the details of food and drink. All right, during the course of a long day, it was Tujaque’s brisket, a Mrs. Wheat’s meat pie, Antoine’s crawfish bisque, Bywater BBQ burger, and Tujaque’s brisket again (thanks to Nola, who was ready for thirds). And Ben & Jerry’s New York Super Fudge Chunk ice cream. No food porn, too awkward to take good shots. Here are some random fest scenes.

Normally I get along with artsy types. The guy who had this on display at Jackson Square was kind of a douche. I’m taking the picture, he starts ranting about I should give him a donation for the nice picture. I tell him I’ll put him on the web and give a link to his site. When he says I should still pay him, I conclude he’s kind of a douche. Maybe he was having a bad day, I don’t know. But it got worse, fast. As he concluded his last try at extracting some cash from me, the wind kicked up, blowing all his stuff off the fence and causing him to scurry after it all. But because I keep my word, here’s the plug and link for Sam Infiniti Hurwitch, who can be seen at zemondo.com.

No, not that one.

This one: Pete & Nola’s Lucky Blog Award, recipients to be determined by as yet undetermined criteria.

Now, I’m not big on blog bling at all. But I am one for a pun, and always up for a Photoshop challenge. So the concept of the Lucky Blog came up in recent discussions of the books Confederacy of Dunces and Managing Ignatius. Modified from the photo that was the subject of and featured in the recent post Hunting Ignatius.

Also in an abbreviated version for sidebar insertion:

Nola’s going to do a post soon with the first winners. Bet y’all can’t wait.

While moseying along Columbia Street down to Brunner Gallery, I ran into Sandra Scalise Juneau, a food writer and and expert on Italian/Sicilian Creole culture. She’s been featured on a couple of Channel 12′s documentaries and Chef John Folse’s program as an authority on New Orleans’ Sicilian community’s St. Joseph’s day altar tradition. Nola and I will be posting about the altars in the near future. Hopefully Sandra will let us use some of her vintage altar photos from the 50s and 60s.

At Brunner, I talked to Linda Dautreuil, artist and the gallery’s curator, about their featured exhibit, works by Vicki Grant. She is a sculpture/mixed media artist who retired from a career as an architect and decided, as Linda said, “To get into the mud.” We also talked about Brunner’s now representing legendary northshore artist George Dunbar.

A favorite of mine, Arless Day, also had works on display at Brunner. Arless is a collage artist who builds scenes from elements he finds in books and magazines, his own photos and elements he paints into the scene. Dreamy and evocative, his works, often rooms created wholly from cut-photos of fireplaces, couches, chairs, plants and books are frozen in time, and make the viewer feel that something is about to happen in them. Arless also creates collages depicting sprawling Italianate villas and landscapes often featuring boats.

Next stop: Fort Isabel gallery, home to a bunch of great artists. Painters Suzanne King and Carol Hallock, glass artist Wes Koon, potter Kelly Landrum-Hammell, artists Carol Lapari, Martin Needom, Johnny Stout and Beryl Carbon are all member/owners. Carol Hallock has submitted a streetcar design I’ll be getting up on the site soon.

Kelly Landrum-Hammell is the proprietor of Three Dog Pottery in Carriere, Mississippi. She makes raku pottery, but also specializes in her own brand of horsehair and feather pottery. She throws white clay pieces, and when the kiln reaches 1500 scorching degrees, she removes the piece and applies horsehair and/or feathers the hot piece, leaving unique carbon patterns on the finished ceramic. Though not Kelly’s, this site has some good examples of what can be accomplished with this technique.

Down the street I went into Spectrum Gallery next to the Columbia Street Taproom who were featuring Garland Robinette and Robert Cook. Garland was there showing his portraiture work done in oil; he’s got a unique style that you wouldn’t guess came from this New Orleans television and radio icon.

While there I ran into Annie Strack, an artist and art writer best known for her nautical-themed watercolors and “boat portraits;” she is an official authorized artist for the U.S. Coast Guard, with paintings featured in the permanent collection of its fine-arts outreach program. Annie participated in the ForeKids Fleur de Lys public art project, but, unfortunately, she said she is not one of the streetcar artists this year. She did introduce me to another artist, Mary, who submitted a streetcar design. She’s going to email me with it for posting soon.

The final stop of the evening was Atelier, an interior design and antique house that is home to artists Marcia Homes and Jim Seitz. Jim’s pleasing impressionistic landscapes are a far cry from the precise medical and engineering illustrations he did for years before embarking on a new creative phase in life.

Sometimes being exiled on the Northshore isn’t too bad after all.