06/27/11

New Orleans: July 4, 1776

•July 4th was on a Thursdays in 1776 so it would have been a busy day for fishermen preparing to bring their catch to the markets in Catholic New Orleans for the next day’s meatless Friday.

•Louisiana’s Spanish governor, Luis de Unzaga, was secretly helping the American cause by arranging for five tons of gun powder to be shipped up the Mississippi, under the flag of Spain. He wanted to help colonial forces ward off British efforts to capture...

06/20/11

Rainy Day in Bellagio

On the boat from Bellagio one of the passengers, an American woman, was surveying the other passengers by showing them a list she had prepared and asking them to vote. The list consisted of possible names for her new dog back home, a rat terrier. There were about a half-dozen possibilities on the card from which I quickly chose “Lek,” not because I had any idea what the name meant but because a rat terrier, it seemed to me, should not have a conventional name, such as “Charles,” which was also one of the choices.

That the conversation was so trivial was a relief because an hour or so earlier I  had sat in a waterside cafe at Bellagio, sipping a cappuccino while watching the hills on the other side of Lake Como. They had been darkened by a downpour...

Posted at 09:08 AM | Permalink | Comments: 0

06/13/11

Happy Birthday, Deacon John

Not that I plan to, but if ever I write a book about the people of New Orleans, the cover image should be Deacon John Moore. He, more than anyone, is representative of the New Orleanian. Black French Creole by birth, raised in a large family with a passion for music, Deacon John’s life has been about the sounds of the city. His career has spanned so long that there are people whose kids are getting married who remember Deacon John at their prom.

This June 23rd (fittingly St. John’s Eve) Deacon John will celebrate his 70th birthday. But he is not about age (that’s the enduring question for Chris Owens); the number that counts is the size of his repertoire, which is in the high hundreds.

John and his big band, Jump Blues, performed at a wedding Friday...

Posted at 10:08 AM | Permalink | Comments: 4

06/06/11

Lola From Azerbaijan

You may have missed Azerbaijan’s National Day celebration. I would have too except that I happened to be one of the tourists in Lafayette Park across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House this past May 28. People flying national flags are not an unusual sight in that setting but quite often they are doing so in anger. This group, however, was totally upbeat, even giddy. Once assembled, around 6:30 p.m., they began singing in their native language what were clearly patriotic songs.


There were other people with messages in the park that hour; one guy with a t-shirt proclaiming that there was “No God But Allah” and another man warning of nuclear doom, but the moment belonged to the Azerbaijani whose flags of red, green and blue with a white crescent and an...

Posted at 09:19 AM | Permalink | Comments: 0