may you live in interesting times March 31, 2006
I had an experience this morning which I hope is not going to be a regular feature of the new New Orleans. I went out to get my newspaper, and it wasn’t there. I searched around for it, thinking that it must have been tossed into some unusual spot. I looked down at my feet and saw a snake crawling into the flower bed beside my house. It was about 18 inches long. It was about as big around as my thumb. The background color was black and it had yellow stripes running down the length of its body. It looked shiny and very healthy. It moved so fast that I couldn’t have killed or caught it if I had tried.
I googled “Louisiana snakes,” and from the pictures on various snake-identification websites it looks like it’s a western ribbon snake. These are non-venomous and can grow to 42 inches. Some people call them “garden” or “grass” snakes. They are considered beneficial snakes because they eat slugs and other garden pests.
M’kay. Snakes in the yard. Maybe I have led a sheltered life, but I have never before seen a snake in the city of New Orleans that was not in a glass case at the Audubon Zoo. When I lived in Folsom on the Bogue Falaya River, I used to see plenty of snakes, including cottonmouths and king snakes. I spent six years gardening at my house in Hammond and I never ran across a single snake. I have a slight aversion to them, and the whole time I have been typing this post my hair has been standing on end.
I can remember when the sight of that snake so close to my front door would have caused me to yank my children up, throw them in the car and take off to my mother’s until my house, yard, and surrounding areas were thoroughly de-snaked. Just because a snake is not poisonous does not mean it won’t bite when surprised or cornered. They move so fast that it is doubtful you would even know what happened.
Although I hate his infernal guts, I am a little worried about Snake vs. Ellis. I think Ellis could easily take the snake (for now, let’s call him “Petey”) at it’s present size. But what about when Petey gets bigger? Death-by-snake is not something I would wish on my worst enemy, not even Ellis. And what if Petey has several dozen brothers and sisters?
I guess that’s where my imagination starts running away with me. I can’t believe it’s a coincidence that I have seen my first urban snake during this first springtime post-Katrina. Like everything else, the snake community has been displaced and is working overtime to ensure its survival. Snakes hatch during the springtime and summer, just like everything else. I also can’t believe that I am the only person in New Orleans who has a snake in her yard this morning. What should we beware of? What are the chances of finding a coral snake, copperhead or some other venomous species in your yard? “Near the water” does not mean anything any more, because the water took everything everywhere. You would think the nasty polluted water would have killed any living thing, but our hearty Louisiana vermin have been living with the crap that we dump in the water ever since the first European boat explored the Mississippi.
When I was cleaning with Katrina Krewe on Gentilly Blvd., I noticed that the abandoned Burger Orleans building had a ventilation system on its roof, surrounded on three sides and the top by a fake Mansard roof. The back was basically open, with some boards slanted in at an angle to hide the ventilation system, but still let air out. There were no screens to keep birds out. If I was a bird, I would certainly build my nest in there, and I’m sure many have by now. The thought of all the abandoned buildings in New Orleans with broken windows, walls and roofs left open, and all these piles of junk, as condos for breeding birds is one thing. The thought of them full of snakes is quite another thing. Like, one of David Cronenberg’s nightmares.
Steve was telling me one night from Hawaii that the island was overrun with mongooses, which were brought in to kill either rats or snakes. Sure enough, a mongoose can kill a cobra. They can eat snake venom and it won’t hurt them. It’s illegal to import them into the U.S., though, because they are so destructive and have no natural enemies. They were imported to the Carribean from India to kill rats, and they wound up wiping out all the small fauna that lived on the ground. They are also egg-suckers.
Let’s think outside the box here, though. After all, it’s a catastrophe. Suppose we train up a commando army of mongooses in Hawaii, males only. I’m not being sexist, I’m just saying that the males are less likely to smuggle a litter of pups over here on the troop ship. The females would probably fight better, but we can’t risk it. We could get some LSU veterinarian students to fly to Hawaii and volunteer to spend a week at the Marriott, checking the gender of mongoose recruits. We could get some New Orleans drug dealers to go to Hawaii and teach the mongooses urban survival skills. We give them their shots, load them up, bulk them up them with omelettes, bring them over here to Louisiana and turn them loose on the snake problem. Perhaps the mongooses could teach our nutria rats how to eat snakes instead of the coastline. Ron Forman would be the perfect person to lead the war on snakes. I’m guessing he is the most herpetologically aware of all the mayoral candidates.
I would trust mongooses, nutria rats and even New Orleans’ drug dealers to deal with the snake problem before I would trust the idiots who are running this city and state. Did everyone see the newspaper yesterday, about how state senator Ken Hollis is investigating this ridiculous comedy of errors surrounding the removal of the cars? From what I understand, the city and the state both solicited bids for the removal of the flooded and abandoned cars. The city chose the company that was charging the most per car, and the state, under its bidding laws, chose the company that was charging the least per car. Neither of the companies that were chosen have any experience at all in the removal and storage of junked cars. The state wants to give its contract to a janitorial service.
What the hell is wrong with these people? A janitorial service is going to deal with hundreds of thousands of cars, stuck in mud, sitting on houses, up in trees? When it all comes out, I’m sure there will be some fucking brothers or sisters-in-law at the bottom of it. Probably connected to the Jefferson/Green family. The people in our government are acting like the law is stopping them from using their heads, which is just plain bullshit. If you don’t know the difference between a janitorial service and a salvage company, then I don’t want you on my payroll. And why are the city and the state duplicating efforts? Is it because so many of our officials have friends and relatives who want sweetheart deals? Maybe we should only elect unmarried orphans to office in this state.
You may not believe this, but there are actually places in this country where elected officials are public servants. There are legislators who view a government contract as a chance to do something positive for their constituents, rather than as another way to feather their nests. There are leaders who are not amoral petty potentates, preening with egos and hair as big as the gangsters’ on The Sopranos. There are voters that are not easily lulled by phoney jesus-talk coming out of evil, incompetent mouths.
The sight of Petey the snake this morning reminded me that the acute effects of this disaster are not yet over. This city in shambles has many more surprises in store for us. We’ve got flowers blooming in all kinds of weird places. It’s touching to see the sunflowers and petunias popping up where you know no human being planted them. As the summer gets here, we might start seeing tomatoes everywhere, growing out from under abandoned houses. The natural world has been upended here and it is fighting to survive.
One day last summer, Shannon and I went to the pool on the roof of the Royal Orleans. We stood looking down at the French Quarter. It had rained the day before and everything was lush. Suddenly, she said, “I bet if everyone abandoned this place, and never picked another weed or trimmed another bush, it would be completely over-grown in three weeks. Everything you see down there would be covered in green.”
I have thought about that numerous times since everyone abandoned this place. Are people who have lost everything going to come back here and keep the weeds down on their property? I doubt it. Is anyone in City Hall thinking about dealing with rodents and snakes this summer? I doubt it. Never a dull moment in Snake City. Danger approaches, no help in sight, and it isn’t even the mean season yet.
drive it till the wheels fall off March 30, 2006
Katherine has gone off to turn in her Appellate brief, which is one of the forms of torture inflicted on first-year law students. They insist that they are not trying to drum people out in the first year, but I am not entirely convinced. The brief is like a scavenger hunt, because the material involved is beyond what is taught to first year students. It’s an exercise in flying by the seat of your pants, and somehow I managed to do OK on it, so I have no doubt she will too.
We had a talk about Ellis’ acting out.
“What do you think I should do?”
“Give him away to another family and don’t tell them he’s evil.”
“I could never do that. I’d rather buy new glasses every week.”
“Then let’s take him on a long drive in the country.”
“He’d find his way back.”
“You’re right. He’s the devil. And he knows a good thing when he sees it.”
The problem could be solved by installing some kind of kitty door so he can get in and out without human assistance. Then he wouldn’t do bad things to get our attention. The down-side of that is, if he isn’t checked when he comes in the door, he will bring his half-dead victims inside and demonstrate torture techniques in front of us. My children’s grandfather was a veterinarian and I once asked him why cats did that. He said that cats and dogs are fundamentally different creatures. Dogs want you to take care of them and they want to please you. Cats think they are taking care of you, and they don’t care what you think of them. When a cat drags a mouse up and tortures it in front of you, he is doing two things. He’s trying to feed you and he’s trying to show you how to hunt. A completely dead mouse will not do for the hunting lesson, it’s got to have some life in it so he can show you how to kill it. You can’t discourage them from this behavior, because they take no notice of whether you are pleased. Good lord, nature is rude!
Shannon went to her doctor yesterday and found that her heart was in arrythmia. A few years ago, she had open heart surgery to correct a problem with her heart valves. Since then, she has twice undergone a procedure which we call “rebooting.” It involves shocking her heart with electricity to get the valves opening and closing in the right rhythm. Her doctor said the favored treatment right now is to do nothing and let the arrythmia continue as long as it does not cause any other problems. She doesn’t want to get rebooted again, and I don’t blame her. She is understandably depressed, so we comiserated today on the phone.
“God, woman. What’s going on with us? We’re falling apart.”
“It’s amazing that we can still pull it together on the outside.”
“I guess it’s a wonder it didn’t happen before now.”
Getting older is like some kind of 12-step program. You first have to admit it and admit that you are powerless over it. You apologize to all the people you love for the inconvenience your impending dotage is causing for them. You end up by deciding to take it one day at a time, trying to make each day a good one. When it comes to your body, you really don’t have a choice. You have to drive it till the wheels fall off.
die, kitty, die!
My roommate’s cat is evil. I’m a dog person, but I don’t have anything against cats. Or at least I didn’t before I lived with one. Shannon and her daughter like cats and dogs, but they are crazy about cats. Katherine has picked up stray kittens since she was a child. This cat, Ellis, was her first officially adopted child and she has catered to him and indulged him since birth. She’s like Damian’s mother in The Omen. She thinks he’s a normal, loving child, if maybe a little precocious and withdrawn. I can see that he is a slick, manipulative, demented killer, and I’m afraid to be left alone with him.
This morning, I was awakened by the sound of breaking glass hitting the floor. I had trouble sleeping last night, so I had slept through Ellis’ usual repertoire of tactics that he uses to wake us up in the morning. Good god, she had left me alone with him all night. I found a wet pile of glass where he had knocked the remains of a drink off the table in the living room. He wanted to go outside and torture smaller creatures than himself, and I wasn’t opening the door fast enough for him. I went outside to get the paper, and as he ran past me I smacked him on the butt with it. “Get out, you hateful feline!”
Oh, how I miss my happy, yippy, goofy Jackie Onassis! You never have to wonder if a toy poodle is possessed by demons.
Protected: light me up
my blog. my eggs. myself. March 28, 2006
I went to my afternoon class and had no luck at all concentrating. I realized on the way to class that I had totally forgotten to ask the doctor about something for my cold. I sat there coughing and sniffling, and I’m sure people wondered why the hell I didn’t just stay home. Professor G. told me I should go to a doctor. “Well, I just….” Forget it. After this morning, I’m afraid to go back there for the cold. I was perfectly fine until I went to the doctor. Now I’m having an existential crisis. I don’t want to walk in there with the sniffles and walk out with lung cancer.
I decided to skip my evening class tonight and use this time to drink scotch. I have a friend, Jessica, who is in both classes. She is a wonderful girl. She’s around 25, but she is very mature and more “human,” as opposed to some of the sharkier types. I told her about my unsettling doctor visit and asked her to e-mail her notes to me. She was very sweet about it and then told me that she actually HAD endometrial cancer, as did her sister and her mother. I was surprised, having assumed that this was something related to getting older.
Jessica said hers had been treatable with laser surgery. I was very glad to know that. Her mother and sister had undergone hysterectomies. She said not to worry, no big deal. I could have kissed her. Maybe tomorrow I will google the situation, when I’m not feeling so pale. It doesn’t seem so nervous-making if a 25-year-old can deal with it. I’d give anything for someone to cook me a steak on the grill right now, I could use a dose of red meat.
Meredith just called asking why she and Josh were finding out about this on the blog. Very meta. I told her I don’t mean anything by it, I’m just using this form of communication now. Telephone means telling it over and over. E-mail means considering the people you write to and tailoring your message to them. For instance, Meredith, being a woman, was interested in the details that I didn’t go into on the blog. Josh would just as soon hear “plumbing problems” and leave it at that. Blogging goes out to people in general and to myself in particular. I write it for myself, but I try to narrate as if I am talking to a friend who does not know everything about me. My close friends can get the general outline of what’s going on and call or e-mail me if they want to know more. They can also check in with me when they are interested via the blog, and not feel like I am expecting a response.
Katherine is home now and is on the case. She’s on the internet, reading aloud to me about endometrial cancer. I’m hoping she is skipping the bad parts. Uh oh. Common treatment is radiation therapy, which necessitates abstinence. Don’t know if I want to go that far. Upside: loss of appetite. Hmmm. Maybe I could come out of this a size-8.
pallas athena
So I went to my gynecologist today for my way-overdue annual check up. I hate the impossible indignity of this experience and I have never gotten used to it, but I like my doctor. He is younger than me, wears longer hair than me and a goatee, rides a motorcycle, and has a very calming manner. In addition to the annual check up, I wanted to tell him that I was having what I thought were pre-menopausal symptoms. Additionally, I needed to talk to him for the first time about birth control. I have been telling him for years that I was using condoms, but the truth is that my birth control method could have been more accurately described as involuntary abstinence.
As he went to work on the other side of the sheet, I told him what was going on. He started talking to me. I had trouble listening because I was uncomfortable.
“Blah blah blah . . . cancer . . . blah bla . . .”
“Wait. What?”
“I could check your hormones, but I don’t think you are close to menopause. Some of these symptoms could also be signs of endometrial cancer. I’m going to ask you to come back for an ultra-sound and a biopsy.”
Fuck. Dude. I came down here for a Pap test and some decongestant. My head started swimming and I could hear the ocean in my ears. I started panting. I must have turned white as the sheets because he and the nurse held my shoulders and laid me back on the exam table. He told her to get a cold cloth. I broke out in a cold sweat and in my mouth I tasted salt.
“I’m going to send you downstairs for a blood count. You might be anemic, too.”
“I’m having an anxiety attack.”
“I don’t want to upset you.”
“Too late.”
He held my hand and stroked my arm. I could feel the blood coming back into my pale head. The thing about anxiety attacks is that I get an overwhelming rush of all the fear my brain can muster up, but then it’s over. After the atomic fear bomb hits me, the path to safety comes to me immediately, and there are no aftershocks. The acute heat of the adrenaline takes fear and turns it into strength and wit. I’m always embarassed by my Post Dramatic Stress Disorder, but it has taught me the survival skills of a wild animal. I don’t think my doctor is a stranger to it, so that’s why I like him. He told me not to worry and that he was going to take care of me.
After I came down off the fear, I was able to ask intelligent questions and get him to repeat some of the things I couldn’t hear because of the ocean in my ears. I am not going to get all upset, I’m too old for that. I have a lot to occupy me until I go for all these tests next month, and I’m confident that they will take care of me. They suckered me into making an appointment for a mammogram, which I think is the most god-awful painful thing they ever dreamed up for us to do, and I’d rather have brain surgery.
I’ll probably play it for all it’s worth, though. “Meredith, honey, can you pick me up some Voodoo Barbeque? I can’t drive down there, I’ve probably got cancer, you know.” On the way home I stopped at Dorignac’s and picked up a bottle of very expensive scotch. If I’ve got cancer, I’ll be damned if I’m drinking cheap liquor. I’m resisting the urge to google all the terms he used because it might very well bring on another anxiety attack. I’ve always wanted to be blissfully ignorant, and this time I think I will. This is the first time the c-word has been used pertaining to me, and the first time I ever thought of my own body as a potential enemy. But, I’m ready for you, baby. Bring it on. Don’t MAKE me open up a can of whup-ass.
lawyers and leicester March 27, 2006
I had a bad headache all day long and still can’t manage to get over this cold. I’m going to the doctor tomorrow and I want a prescription for anything they’ve got. Illness always depresses me. I couldn’t concentrate in class and kept having negative thoughts about my young classmates. Many of them seem a little bit souless to me. I’m taking a first-year class that involves ethics problems. When called upon, most of the students in this class will try to find a technical way around an ethical issue rather than saying, “I would not do that, it’s unethical.” Anyone who said that would be thought a credulous fool, and we all know it. Professor C., during the last class, said, “I want you all to listen to yourselves.” But I wonder if it’s too late to change the way they think about things. Or, maybe it’s too early.
At first, I wondered where these young people were getting this amoral attitude. I realize they are all borrowing an obscene amount of money to go to law school and many of them borrowed a lot for their undergraduate educations. If they want to be able to pay it back, they’ll need to land a good high-paying job. Perhaps they think exhibiting a killer instinct will help them land a clerkship at a defense firm. That didn’t really explain it, though. I’ve come to realize that a lot of these kids have attorneys for parents. Children often ape their parents’ attitudes and usually exaggerate them. I’ve seen my attorney friends get a mischievious twinkle in their eyes as they hypothetically figure out how to get around an ethical problem to get to a big bag of money. None of them would ever do it, though. I hope these kids realize that while their parents or friends might talk a big line about throwing ethics out the window for enough money, very few of them will actually do it. Of those who do, a large percentage will get caught.
The thing that keeps my lawyer friends on the right side of the ethical line, and that will keep me there, I hope, is not the fear of getting caught. I have no doubt that I would get caught elbow-deep in the cookie jar if I tried anything like that. The main reason is that once you lose your reputation, you never really get it back.
Most lawyers lie. They have to. When an opposing attorney asks you what your injured client will settle for, you can’t literally tell them the truth. No one negotiates starting from their bottom line, but everyone knows that. The idea is to get as much as you can for you client to your mutual benefit. When a lawyer lies about more substantive things that actually affect the outcome of cases, other lawyers instantly distrust them and lawyers talk. Eventually, judges find out you are a liar. I don’t care how much money I made, I could not lay my head down on my 1,000-thread-count sheets and sleep at night if everyone in town thought of me as a liar. I don’t think I took integrity very seriously when I was 25. I am sure this has come with age. As I ease into the second half of my life, I realize that, unlike money and 15 minutes of fame, an honorable reputation is something you get to keep when you die.
When I worked at a defense firm downtown, the partner I worked for always tried to deal honestly with opposing counsel. Even if he found them to be liars, he would never fight fire with fire like that. He never passed up a chance to nail them, but he didn’t take cheap shots. I think he would have jumped out the window of One Shell Square before knowingly letting a lie get into court. Since this was my first exposure to a working lawyer, I guess I was spoiled. I appreciate that example and I intend to follow it as much as I can. I can tell you, though, that it is possible to work for a hard-charging defense firm and make beaucoup money and still be able to look people in the eye when you talk to them. I’ve seen it done.
When I got home, I cheered myself up by making plane reservations to go visit Leicester in New York next month for spring break. He is living in Park Slope, working temp jobs and making the rounds. He had a job at a restaurant, but it was too time-consuming. He is dating a new guy who has a Jack Russell Terrier. I miss that kid so much. I haven’t seen nearly enough of him since last summer. Leicester has a small speaking role in a movie that is now playing on In Demand. It’s called “The Shooting Gallery.” Leicester plays the heroine’s friend, from whom she borrows money in a laundry. It’s really a terrible movie and Ving Rhames should destroy every copy of it. He spends the whole movie chewing on a chicken wing and talking with his mouth full. Leicester, however, is spectacular and I have seen the movie several times. He comes on about 12 minutes in.
I’m trying to get Steve to join me in New York, since it’s a holiday weekend. Leicester will be working some of the time while I am there, so maybe Steve and I could see some museum shows. Steve met Leicester only briefly and I’m sure they would get along. We might run into William Marshall, too, and learn more about his plans for after graduation. Steve sent me some great drawings of the house he and his brother are going to build in Hawaii. It’s beautiful, simple, elegant, sensible and light. The roof forms a “V,” so it looks like the house is getting ready to take flight. It’s full of air and sunlight. He called and said that his brother loved the design and it all looks very feasible. Steve is gifted. He has great originality. His creativity is very stimulating to me. I love those eyes and how they see things.
they make your bathroom more fun March 26, 2006
Cathy and Becky Deano and some other Northshore folks are putting on a benefit art auction for Ann O’Brien and John Preble on Saturday night, April 1, at the St. Tammany Art Association in Covington. Ann has pancreatic/liver cancer and they have not gotten any encouraging news from the doctors. She and John, her husband, created the UCM Museum in Abita Springs. Ann has been a jeweller for many years, always crafting it from sterling silver. She has two sons, Andrew and William, and William is still in high school. Before the cancer diagnosis, they had a tree smash through the roof of their beautiful old house in Abita during the hurricane. I’m sure Ann and John were among those of us saying, “well, it can’t get any worse, right?”
Ann and John were very encouraging to me when I first started making the beaded boxes and shoes about eight years ago. Ann put a pair of my Mardi Gras beaded cowboy boots in the UCM. She always liked the kookiness of the beads and I think the idea of recycling Mardi Gras appealed to her. She’s kind of a low-tech person.
Cathy asked me if I would donate something to the art auction, and I said “yes” without knowing what it would be. Then, when Steve and I were making those crazy plungers for the Krewe of Tucks parade, I realized that those were not going to be my last plungers. I couldn’t stop coming up for ideas for bigger and sillier plungers. There is something about this piece of wood that costs less that $3.00 and comes with its own stand that I just can’t resist. They are begging to become little totem poles. They are blank totem poles. And they come in two sizes! They can look like good-luck charms or fetish objects. I think if Ann sees these ridiculous plungers that have been made useless for their intended purpose by decoration, it will make her laugh. I hope they make everyone laugh, and I hope they get a hell of a lot more than $3.00 each for them. I’m looking for at least $100 for the large ones.
I had a little trouble finding wooden handled plungers to work with. There seems to be a fashion now for molded plastic plungers a la Martha Stewart. This is a mistake. They are cheesy and flimsy and they cost much more than the sturdy old wooden ones, so don’t buy them! I had to go to a plumbing supply place for the large ones and they were very curious about why I wanted all these plungers. When I told them I wanted to make art out of them, they were super-accomodating and enthusiastic. I have always found this to be so whenever I have tried to secure some industrial item for use in a piece of art or a play. It must be nice for them to have a customer who is not a hurried contractor or a cranky plumber. They didn’t have any small kitchen sink plungers, but I finally found them at . . . um . . . a secure, undisclosed location.
I’ve made 10 plungers since Mardi Gras. Here is a slideshow of them. They are posted on Yahoo, but I can’t seem to get my Yahoo photos to post to the blog. Please take a look and let me know what you think. If any blog readers are interested in bidding, or interested in a custom-designed plunger-totem, e-mail me. They’re fun. I like making them. They are not complicated and they are anything but serious.
wrong side of the bed March 25, 2006
Today, I had to go to Loyola Law School for another mini-course. I resented the intrusion on my Saturday, but this is just one more time-eating hoop that I have to jump through on the way to my goal. A very few friends know that I have been having a string of stressful days that can only be cured with time. So, I resigned myself to spending this beautiful spring day inside the law school listening to an attorney who is an officer in the Bar Association explain to us the practical ins and outs of professionalism in practice.
Well, I got off on the wrong foot.
The law school parking lot is an example of what happens when someone says, “hey, we need more parking spaces. We can’t afford to build anymore, so let’s paint some.” Presto, a parking lot built for 40 cars suddenly holds 60, as long as no one does anything reckless like open their car door.
I drove up into the parking lot and into a space that had about six inches of room on either side of the Exploder. I have explained already what a lovely, warm, peaceful feeling you get from having a shitty car in situations like this. I parked next to a very dirty silver Honda. I opened my door just enough to get myself out of the car and it slightly tapped the passenger-side rear view mirror unit of the Honda. I’ve been parking in this lot for two years and experience told me that this was not a serious collision.
Suddenly, the passenger-side window of the Honda came down. There was someone in there. I fat older guy with bad teeth, wearing a suit and looking at some papers. Probably a practitioner here to lead one of the mini-courses being offered. I smiled at him and said, “Sorry.”
“Oh, now you see I’m in here and you’re going to apologize?”
I’m thinking, why would I apologize to any empty car?
“You really knocked my car a good one. I could feel it rocking.”
“Well, your car is fine, there is no damage.”
“Yeah, right. You say.”
“Well, get out here and show me the damage to your car, then.”
I can’t remember what he said, but I turned around and flipped my seat up to get my computer bag out of the back seat.
“Now, you just hit it again!”
OK, Jabba the Hut, you are messing with me on the wrong fucking day. I pushed my car door slowly up against his mirror and leaned down. I looked him in the eye.
“Why don’t you just kiss my ass?”
I grabbed my bag and stalked off, bumping my nice, soft ass up against his car. The Dean and Professor Higginson were standing on the sidewalk.
“I hope that fat asshole is not one of our instructors,” muttered as I walked by. They looked over at him just in time to see him waving his arms and yelling at me. I was on the front steps of the law school.
“Hey, buddy! You want a piece of me? You keep it up!” I was beyond mad. I was ready to kick this jerk’s ass all over Uptown, and I didn’t care if he turned out to be the world’s first Honda-driving federal judge.
I found out that my class was in the building across the street. As I walked over there, Professor Higginson caught up to me. He asked me what happened and I told him. He said that neither he nor the Dean knew who this guy was. He said that he had talked to the guy and the guy said I “hit” his car and refused to apologize. Professor Higginson had done the same thing I did - asked the guy to show him the damage. The guy said, “Oh, it’s nothing.”
OK. NOW it’s nothing. Now that you’re talking to a MAN, it’s nothing? Fuck you, you fucking fuck.
don: cultural mvp March 24, 2006
From today’s Times-Picayune, art critic Doug MacCash, in the “Lagniappe” section:
For 30 years Don Marshall has been the Lawrence of Arabia of the local cultural scene, gathering the irascibly independent tribes of artists, thespians and musicians under the same big tent for their mutual good. He’s given us monthly coordinated gallery openings, the New Orleans Film Festival, the Tennessee Williams Festival and Krewe du Vieux. Not to mention that he’s been director of the Contemporary Arts Center, Le Petit Theatre and presently the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and Foundation.
In the months since Katrina, he’s strived to inspire the students in his UNO arts administration class to find ways to focus the strength of the battered post-K arts community. One of the results is Femme Fest, a first-ever citywide celebration of women’s contributions to Crescent City culture in the studio or on the stage. The fest, which includes previously scheduled and custom-made events, started Thursday and continues through March 27. (March is Women’s History Month.) The event is spearheaded by students Meryl Levia and Shanna Hudson-Stowe.For details, see Cultural Calendar on page 13. For more Femme Fest information, write Hudson-Stowe at ophelia533@aol.com.
I had lunch with Don today at the Praline Connection and he was laughing about being called “Lawrence of Arabia.” Actually, that would make a really good Mardi Gras costume for Don, but these days people would think it’s some reference to the current unpleasantness in the middle east. Anyway, Femme Fest’s schedule is listed in the Lagniappe and on nola.com. I am interested in seeing the production of “Medea” at Tulane. It’s only $12, $7.50 for students.
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