Jeudi

My recent visit to New Orleans -memories both old and new
~Arthur Remanjon

~Flora Cafe, where Editilla once worked swinging snowballs and fresh juice.
Indeed, during "The Troubles" that first week of 8/29/05, Flora's served us well as a capstan refuge in the neighborhood for the after-storm flood partay.
This cemetery was another place where I felt safe, and though saying a lot that is still a very strange thing for silly Editilla.
We just can't stop looking at Arthur's photographs, sooo...
here is my own little gift offering of Lagniappe Noir.
“Take care when you handle Cliche’ lest you draw offense of Metaphor, as neither will honor what they seem in life nor what you would wish of them in death.” …said Down the Gravedigger to his apprentice.
“I could not agree more.” mutters Bourgeois to himself not alone.
His words fall like pennies on a damp vault floor,
amidst the scattered sounds of fat raindrops as they begin to hit the tiny streets and little stone buildings of this city of the dead.
Above, shit-brown clouds fly over the rooftops of the Quarters like the surface of a dirt road as seen from three inches away at thirty mph. Yet he feels neither breeze nor disparate sigh from the rain falling now straight and steady down into the cemetery.
He had already seen Metaphor kill here, just minutes ago, before the weather changed. Now he needs to get away, get out of this labyrinth, get normal again somewhere hidden, before the Guard makes another sweep through the hood with their humvees and big hard spotlights. Thank Marie Leveau their helicopters are grounded for the coming storm.
Cliche’ cares not for uniformed authority, as their spotlights and loud machines and the misunderstanding of control in their barked orders make her nervous. Whenever Cliche’ gets nervous Metaphor comes into play and the scene changes quickly, irrevocably. Having seen enough of that for one night, Bourgeois just wants find someplace more comfortable to settle down before the storm opens up properly and real darkness falls over the city again like a rat bag. Plus it just would do no good--at all--to be seen right now with the bloody twins, especially out after the city-wide 2am curfew--and especially after they both ripped apart and consumed four confident, well armed heroine dealers and their murdered Master Down. Five dead humans you won't find a trace of in the social register of this or any other necropolis.
Bourgeois Melonsong is their Master now, for better or for worse,
which he already knew as the deal with Cliche' and Metaphor.
But where is the fucking gate out of this filthy maze?
He came in through it, the only entrance, but still for the life of him he can’t even find the wall around the place in this rain.
If he could make it to a wall then he could work his way around through the Stations, always keeping to the right, along the Society vaults until he reached the front gate.
Cliche’ and Metaphor are no help, of course. They don't care, having grown up in these tiny towns across the city.
They lead Bourgeois along, as if he were a writer with all the time in the world to study the names on each address, ponder how they came to be here and when. Therein lies the tombstone rub...
He is a writer and he indeed knows something of the stories behind a few of the citizens of this city that care forgot and the Presidente left for dead.
And he has no time left for any more graveyard dog tricks.

Inspectors find problems with 17th Street Canal pumps
~Maya Rodriguez~They are the pumps designed to drain flood water in the event of a tropical storm or hurricane. However, some of the pumps at the 17th Street Canal have been pulled out of the site after inspectors discovered problems with six of the hydraulic pumps there.
"I'm not really surprised. Those pumps really aren't the best pumps that our city has," said H.J. Bosworth, a civil engineer and the director of research at the watchdog group Levees.org. "These hydraulic pumps, if they last 20 years, the folks that make them are happy. So, they're not the most durable."
“Sure, they'll do the job,” he said. “But I'm glad that someone sounded the alarm and decided to go ahead refurbish these things, re-fit them and do something about the corrosion they found."

City Hall and the LSU/VA,
A Comparative Study
~We Could Be Famous

Bad day at 3800 Howard
~Kevin Allman

Part 3 Belongs to CrescentCityRay
~casa de Charlotte bella luna
~I had a comment on my first post about this series from Judyb cautioning that the comments on the story were heartless. As I told her, I stopped reading comments in the aftermath of Katrina when so many were so vicious. But, for some reason, today I did read the comments. Yes, they were pretty awful but comment six from CrescentCityRay just broke my heart and it was worth slogging through the previous five comments. I just hope his words and his experience with post-Katrina mental illness shamed those other commenters. But I doubt it.
~Editilla Notellas~ I have been following this series as well, but more from the perspective of WTF?
They continued to slog the Lie that "Katrina-did-it".
But then, as the series progressed, the comments started to really grate on yer'oh'so humble Editilla's Toof.
This rag, Washington Times, was founded by the Rev. Sun Moon and is an established Neo'Con Intel'Pro mouthpiece. I know that sounds ridiculous but it's true and I don't feel like getting into that part right now. Suffice to say, I found each of these articles garrulously slanted and even a tad Yankee racist in their framing of New Orleans Mental Illness Post Federal Flood (PFF).
The fact that they continued though the series to deny the cause of the Flood, always laying out to the Storm rather than the failed engineering, struck me as telling of the efficacy of their view. They opened with The Lie.
This was a piece of subtle misinformation, black marketing.
The more I read these articles the more I resent them.
It is a Quiet Lie that New Orleans is Hopeless.
It is a Quiet Lie that we should not have flooded.
It is a Quiet Lie that we are beyond recovery because we were crazy in the first place to live here.
It is a Quiet Lie that what befell New Orleans was something most Americans can get their mind around.
It was not... something to "get over". The only way Editilla has found to try that about the Flood, is with this Ladder and the Hand of the Goddess who takes care of Fools and Errant Troubadours. Yeah, I went pretty batshit crazy too.
But, what is the rest of America's Excuse? I was there.
What say da'Jury? Here come da'Judge!
I can forgive God for Mary, but I Will Never Forget the Crucifixion of New Orleans by the Exquisite Corps of Engineers.
Editilla NOLA'HOLAS Ray!
Sinn Féin to'da Crescent City!

Slabbed salutes CrescentCityRay

The New Orleans Mental Health Crisis, Exposed~Harry Shearer

Books Review: Great Moments in New Orleans History
By Bud Faust~Kim Ranjbar
~Bud Faust is a humorist, playwright and staff writer at The New Orleans Levee, a free satirical publication commenting on politics and news in New Orleans. This April, Faust released a book called “Great Moments in New Orleans History”.
The humor in this book will bring tears to your eyes from laughing so hard, especially if you are familiar with the historic lows and highs in New Orleans.
~Reading & Book Signing~
Thursday, August 6, 2009 6:00 p.m.
Octavia Books, 513 Octavia St., New Orleans

Livingstone College lends a hand
~Laurie Willis
~In a historic trip designed to highlight civic responsibility and activism while rewarding campus leadership, a group of Livingstone College students spent a week in New Orleans repairing homes damaged by Hurricane Katrina, volunteering at a festival honoring the legacy of legendary jazz musician Louis Armstrong, organizing collections in The Southern Food and Beverage Museum and, well, having fun.

Eat, dance and shop in Gentilly to the sounds of Jonathon Bloom and the Salty Dogs
~Maria Montoya

Quintron: Risk Your Life To Become a Calliope Player
~L.A. Record

Watch Maxwell’s New Video “Bad Habits”~Honey Soul