Sunday, March 28, 2010

Dimanche

Crooks want to work for NOLA? Let them sue~Jarvis DeBerry

State possessed with demonic $1.7 billion shortfall
~Michelle Millhollon

~Governorcist Jindal’s Repeal of Stelly Plan Was Previously Predicted to Cause Serious Budget Problems ~CenLamar
~
PAR, CABL assess activity ~Mike Hasten

Bob Marshall: Louisiana lawmakers seek to divert funds from Conservation Fund - again
~So, how would you feel if your hunting and fishing license fees were helping staffers at, say, the Department of Education, enjoy steak dinners while on the road? Or, maybe defraying the cost of Gov. Jindal's fancy car?

LSU scaling back?
~SaveCharityHospital.com


Reasons for Hope in NOLA: Money to be Spent, Things That Have Been Done
~World Class New Orleans


Why can't Corps of Engineers leave our trees be? ...or, Fo'Whom Da'Bell Be'Tollin Next? ~Stuart Leavenworth

Analysis: Dallas' crucial levees only grew weaker as city debated park, toll road plans
~Michael A. Lindenberger


Numbers show fewer homes, higher prices since Katrina
~Katherine Schmidt


Images of New Orleans Neighborhoods 2010 Part Six: The Columns Hotel~Bill Ives
~Okay, the Columns Hotel is not a neighborhood but it is located between the fifth and seventh neighborhoods in this series. It located on the edge of the Garden District on St. Charles Ave. and the edge of the Uptown area above St. Charles that I will cover next. My grandmother was the manager in the 1950s and I would visit her often. Her room was on the top floor and I remember the sky light and stairs. I have stayed there a number of times in the past few years, including once in my grandmother's old room on the top floor. It is located at 3811 Saint Charles Avenue. Click pic to enlarge and magnify.
~Editilla Gotta Bellatella~ I Lived Here! Yes! Way back in 1979, we moved to New Orleans after dropping out of our first semester at college, got a job at Pat O'Brien's the day we came to town, and found a room at The Columns about 2 weeks later. Back then the house sat, ahem, well before its latest grace of unbelievably beautiful restoration.
Still very green to the City, 19 years old fresh outta the MS Delta cottonland, I had gotten off the street car at random right in front of the place. It was a dark and stormy night (HA!) and the Columns was hosting a Wake for W.B. Yeates... so I rushed in to get out of the rain, having no idea at the time who this Yeates had been nor when. They had set up a casket in that Front Left Room. There was nothing really of the configuration displayed today, it was much more of a Big House, but with a Check-in desk.
New Orleans used to have a Lot of these type check-in desks.
And there was a Real Body in that casket as beautiful people laughed about the corpse like old friends. Yet, just as I had begun to think I'd stumbled into an actual Family Wake, someone in an Undertaker's tuxedo stood onto a chair as if to recite poetry...
Now as at all times I can see in the mind's eye,
In their stiff, painted clothes, the pale unsatisfied ones
Appear and disappear in the blue depth of the sky
With all their ancient faces like rain-beaten stones,
And all their helms of silver hovering side by side,
And all their eyes still fixed, hoping to find once more,
Being by Calvary's turbulence unsatisfied,
The uncontrollable mystery on the bestial floor.
The Magi
Hooked, Lined and Sinkered. That was it for me.
Got laid in a room upstairs that night, and Lived in that beautiful place for about 3 months before moving further uptown after kicking Pat'Os if ya'know what I mean, as some doubtless do.
I just fell in love with that house the first second of waking up there. At first we rented just a room per night which though cheap at $30 would still weigh down even a Green Jacket Pocket.
Soooo, they gave us that very room on the top floor where they did some of the movie Pretty Baby. Indeed, it was even Pretty Baby's Room, complete with the false vaulted ceiling and such.
Top floor, so you can imagine coming home from work and getting to climb those huge old stairs with the first morning's sunrise falling down through the stained glass like a posse of vengeful nymphs that has finally got you cornered.
Really though, I'd stop on each landing sometimes and just stare at the pieces of that window, knowing there must be well over 1000 leaded together. Somebody wanna help us out here?
I mean that window is Really Big, like at least 10 feet across.
Later over the decades I have stayed there many times, following the evolution of the Hotel into its One of a Kindness today.

To the Rescue
~Crescent City Hack


City Park and Esplanade Ridge Historic District~L'Archivista

Battle Plan holds off General Quarters to win Grade II New Orleans Handicap~Doug Tatum

President Obama, in surprise visit to New Orleans, takes Wrong Turn and ends up in Afghanistan to crack down on corruption

The Water & Moon Festival
– The Mardi Gras of Cambodia


Last day of Crawfish Festival!

Not Gone With the Wind
Post-Katrina, family recipes keep alive a rich Jewish culinary heritage...~Judith Silver


Film company to create first feature in bayou country
~Laura McKnight


Pelican Publishing celebrates 40th anniversary, adds titles
~Opelousas Daily World


We're Bringing 'Kink for a Cause' Back to Moulin Vieux!

There is a reason pussy cries on a hot tin roof.

*
2 Second Line Parades Today! -Revolution SA&PC and Uptown Mardi Gras Indians~Red Cotton

HBO 'Treme' fundraiser for New Orleans Musicians' Clinic packs Generations Hall~Dave Walker

No comments: