The five foot long gar fish that were in the bayou the other day are still slinking around. There are about four or five of them and they look prehistoric. I ran into a neighbor today on the bayou who reminded me that he played football with my first husband at Rummel. I asked him if he had seen him lately and he said a few years ago. I said how does he look and…
Friends recently were raving about a 3D film they saw at the Louisiana Film Festival called Cave of Forgotten Dreams where filmmaker Werner Herzog went with a group of scientist who discovered the cave paintings in Chauvet, France, that are 32,000 years old. At one point, they discover a painting that is on top of the paintings done 1,000 years later. I was thinking of my middle age spread as I watched three young women…
Bayou Boogaloo, Re-Bridge work, Tin, Tatjana, and hardly any time to catch a breath. The most significant event that happened this weekend was Tin went with our neighbors to the festival for an hour. Hard to believe we let him go but we trust our neighbor, her daughter, and her daughter’s friend to obsessively watch him like we would. He had a blast and now that is all he can talk about is his cougar…
Bayou Boogaloo started late yesterday and it was more than a TGIF type Friday, it was a long week filled with emotional roller coasters, too much to do, and at the end progress albeit at a cost, so naturally a music festival a block away was the only answer and as usual, New Orleans provided. The Boogaloo has grown and now sports a kid’s tent like Jazz Fest along with other new attractions. Since Tin…
In a writing class I took a thousand years ago, the instructor said to use a found object or a trigger to begin writing, write as if a memoir, using what is in front of you to lead you the way, a la Proust and his madeline. I walked outside my apartment on Vermont Street on Portrero Hill where we had moved, having arrived back in San Francisco much to my chagrin from a truncated…
It’s easy to make a buck. It’s a lot tougher to make a difference. ~Tom Brokaw I joined the Re-Bridge group in my neighborhood that is seeking to restore the two historic bridges that cross the bayou because it is a project that is dear to my heart. And even though I have no extracurricular time, I’m making time because I think it is worthwhile. I was thinking about how making a difference starts to…
We watched Amreeka last night and the actress, Nisreen Faour, was so engaging as a newly arrived to the U.S. Palestinian mother trying to find the best place for her son to grow up; I expect we’ll see more from her. The movie is definitely worth renting – add it to your Netflix list. The Arabic music was as familiar to me as Sephardic music, the food was most of what I grew up eating because…
“I’m not afraid of storms, for I’m leaning to sail my ship.” Louisa May Alcott It’s not stormy weather around here, it’s actually beautiful but there are so many fronts of action (like there always are, she says to herself) and I’m just running here, and jumping there, and ending my days spent. But last night we started watching Amreeka and I actually can’t wait to get back to part two (oh, the days when…
I’ve been getting calls from concerned people wondering how we are doing here in New Orleans. And we’re fine albeit those barges look like they are eye level when they float by because the river is so high. One hotel in the wake of the river had this on their website in Memphis: As we are sure you have heard of the rising Mississippi river waters in relation to Memphis and possibly some mis-information, we…
DIARY Steadiness, all of a sudden, is not a state. Nor is it omen or greeting. Steadiness, all of a sudden, is perpetual war waged at the furthest borders of the day. On the tongue of first light, o to speak, or the slaked lime of nightfall. by Luis Muñoz