Colleen Kane

The First of the Last Vistors

2009-11-12T10:44:28-06:00

My dear friend and former roommate Amanda, known to nearly 100,000 YouTube viewers as Flight Attendant, came to visit for a few days. She's the first of a series of visitors who will come during our last six or so months in Louisiana (!). So now that we have to show the place to fellow Northerners, what did we show?

For one thing, we met LSU mascot Mike the Tiger. It looked like this:

Well, that was just one encounter. We met current Mike the Tiger when we took a spin through the LSU campus. We pretty much stood there at his caged habitat for five minutes saying, "That's a tiger!" and "Look at how big he is!" and "Hi, Mike!" while Mike ignored us and small children ran back and forth laughing manically, following his every stride.

Our animal encounters didn't end there. An official shit ton of pelicans have taken roost on the University Lakes lately. And on the way to New Orleans, we saw a massive bloated dead nutria, my second in as many weekends after never seeing one before that. On that ride to and from NOLA we saw at least six dead owls along 10, all of the same type, but all in different places. I'm baffled as to what misfortune has befallen them. Mass suicide? Poisoning? Seriously, does anyone have any info on this phenomenon?

While we did some touristy things--I drove her through the Garden District of Baton Rouge, and in NOLA we strolled through the French Quarter, shopped Magazine Street, and took an unplanned, but revelatory for Amanda, detour to the Lower Ninth Ward--Amanda's had a very rough time of it lately, and we really wanted to show her food.

In New Orleans, we brunched at Elizabeth's, which was amazing. Less amazing was our 40+ minute wait on line for beignets at Cafe du Monde, but at least while on line we got to watch an insane lady rapturously conducting an orchestra only she could hear. And then we turned our backs a moment and she vanished, leaving only sparrows in her place. And then the sparrows disappeared. On Saturday the hubbs and I rolled out our greatest hits for a cookout, higlighting local shrimp and contributions from our garden--

Please just witness how jumbo this homegrown habanero is--

and on Sunday Amanda and I teamed up to make a seafood gumbo, again with the shrimp. We also squeezed in a po'boy before she departed.

At one local watering hole we hit before that po'boy came this exchange:

Amanda: "We're being watched suspiciously, did you notice that?"

Me: "Oh, I'm used to it."

It's not really suspicion, though, with these older folks, I think it's more curiosity. With the younger hipper folks, I don't know what to call the flavor of their staredown--resentment? I need help from fellow outsider Kara here, because she's noticed the 'tude as well.

I think Amanda definitely got a sense of the frustrating "because that's just how it is here" business during her brief stay. Perhaps this phenomenon is best exemplified by the following: as I drove her to BR Metro airport, we were looking for the right exit to take, and knew it was close.

"There we go!" Amanda declared, on seeing the exit for Airline Highway.

"Nooo...you don't take Airline to the airport. I know that would make sense, but that's just how it is here."

Stuff like that.

Then after taking the right exit, it was signed so badly we could barely find the airport, and the airport smelled like stale beer. But I hope Amanda had a rejuvenating visit.

This is Halloween

2009-11-02T10:01:01-06:00

Here is me as Meg Fright of the imaginary rock and roll zombie combo (zombo) the Fright Stripes, based of course on the real life rock and roll combo the White Stripes. The hubbs doesn't like to be pictured on this blog, but he was Jack Fright. (I don't think Meg Fright's drum technique would be much different from Meg White's, by the way.)

So of course we went to New Orleans, which is one of the best places on Earth to celebrate Halloween. I want to say it's The best, but more on that in a moment.

First we went to catch the end of Saturday's Voodoo Fest, including Jane's Addiction and KISS.

Jane's Addiction was pretty great. When they played "Stop," I remembered how much it grabbed me when it was new. It was so different from everything else, and the crowd was going wild in the video. That said, it comes nowhere near grabbing me now like it did then. But that's the case for pretty much every song I've heard a million times. I guess I over-listened to those Jane's albums, because I can't hear them the same way anymore. That's sad. But there's an infinite amount of music I've never heard still out there. That's why I don't get how people can listen to classic rock radio all the time. It's the same songs! You're making them inaudible by so many listens.

So this was the onstage pile-on during "Jane Says." Sounds corny, but it was the highlight. Well, other than wondering what the flamboyant Mr. Perry Farrel was high on besides the wine he was drinking on stage. So on stage, you had Perry Farrell in his glittery purple superhero costume ("Tonight, New Orleans, I am a suuuperheeerooooo!") (And is he one of the only rock performers to still have costumes custom made for him? ), singing with an arm slung around, say, Fidel Castro, or slutty Rainbow Brite, or a bear, or what have you. Good times. I love the juxtaposition of people in unrelated costumes hanging out.

Then came KISS. Myself, former co-blogger at Scanner Brian, and the hubbs felt that it better open up with explosions. In fact, wouldnt' it be awesome if Gene just started it up while Jane's was still playing, during "Jane Says" with a big explosion? The crowd agreed. Before KISS started, people were calling out for explosions, or simply "FIRE!" Wouldn't it be perfect to see KISS on Halloween? Not really, as it turns out. They don't do it for me. We left before it was over, which I love doing. I hate long rock shows.

Finally, to Frenchman's street for Halloween! It was much more crowded than I remember it being last year. Frenchman's street was almost impassable, like Mardi Gras. We quickly moved a few blocks to less crowded digs. So that's the one way New Orleans was not the best ever this year. Still, I highly recommend doing this if you love Halloween.

Some characters: the Zach Galifinakis role from The Hangover. I asked where his man bag was, though, and he didn't have it. That's like 1/3 of the costume missing!

This guy, below. A little eagle, some Native American business, but dead style eyes. What was he? I'm guessing...the dead American dream?

As for common costumes, I'm astounded to say that the most common costume I saw was not Jon & Kate, Balloon Boy, Michael Jackson*, or Lady Gaga, but the Mario Brothers. Here's an example below of Mario, his princess, and...their cow.

*Speaking of Michael Jackson, I only saw two, or maybe it was the same one. But he was quite fond of my husband, and sort of caressed his arm as we passed by. It might have been the real Michael Jackson.

And now, here is what I just love about New Orleans.

This mini parade came through, with all sorts of bloody freaks, a fairy tale lady, a bloody clown, etc. It was presided over by what looked like a benevolent blue dancing mouse. Except when they got closer, it seemed the mouse was holding up a real pig head.

You can see the pig head a bit in this one. I love the mini parades. One minute it's not there, the next, you do a little dance and your day has been brightened(/ disturbed, if it includes dead animal heads), then, gone.

Here is Classic Batman entreating a box of wine for some wine out of his bag. Mr. Box of Wine did have an actual dispenser spigot going, but had to take off his costume & get the bag out.

Annnnd, the last photo of the night, which about encapsulates that time.

Watching the World Wake Up From History*

2009-10-27T12:34:36-05:00

* Can't believe I just quoted Jesus Jones.

If you're a nerd or someone who loves them, you probably heard that as of yesterday, GeoCities is under construction no more. To bring the rest up to speed, GeoCities was an online community that was a precursor to blogging, enabling any slob who could follow a few simple directions to have a free website. Of course the quality of those websites were laughably Ye Olden Internette Style: cheesy bright colors, flashing words, animated GIFs of happy faces doing things, rampant abuse of Comic Sans font (and isn't it all abuse?), and lots of under construction signs. As users switched to blogs and other platforms, GeoCities became a ghost town of abandoned websites, lingering on unnoticed for years. Parent company Yahoo! announced earlier this year that the service would shut down.

Although no one thinks they look good anymore, the websites still make up part of the history of the Internet. It would be wrong to let all those pages just disappear. Get a load of some GeoCities sites, helpfully preserved at Internet Archeology. On a personal note, some of my first writing on the Internet went up on a GeoCities site that I'm happy to see go, but I've included a sample below.

A more gradual exit is being made by the video store. It came to my attention yesterday when the Blockbuster I pass daily was festooned in GOING OUT OF BUSINESS SALE banners. I'd suspected it was coming when a few months back I got coupons with every rental, which kept me coming back until the coupons ended, and then last week I noticed stacks of cardboard boxes inside the place. Our previous video store, Hollywood, closed suddenly not long after we moved here, and an even closer Blockbuster had closed before we arrived, still standing empty. After work yesterday, the soon-to-be- ex-Blockbuster was swarming with students eager to spend disposable income on video games and movie posters. I stopped in, since I can't resist a clearance sale, but there wasn't one thing I wanted. Now, with cable, I don't need to own DVDs. In general, with the ubiquity of Netflix, the whole store felt excessive and unnecessary even when it was still in regular business. It was sad.

(Here comes the bye-cracky "I remember when video stores were cool" part:) When I was a kid, going to the video store was a treat. I would beeline for the back left corner, the horror section, just across from the curtained back room of "you know what" kinds of "bad people" movies (with no inkling that I would one day work in a porno office that produced such titles as Purely 18). Every time, I'd pick up the box for The Hills Have Eyes and look at the ugly guy from the Motley Crue "Smokin' in the Boys Room" video with the pointy-shaped head, and not rent it. It was the heyday of '80s slasher flicks such as I Dismember Mama, April Fool's Day, The Slumber Party Massacre. I was typically not allowed to rent these titles, so my only hope was sleepovers hosted by permissive or clueless parents. In the case of the abhorrent I Spit on Your Grave, I had to wait til college for that one to pollute my eyeballs, and much later for the nauseating Last House on the Left.

The point is, the video store was a place we went to to linger and select what was most appealing and leave for home feeling like we had a prize. The anticipation of the experience was totally tied up with friends or family and soda and pizza and Tato Skins and orange cheese popcorn and comfy couches or sleeping bags in the near future. It was not the same as going to see a movie in the theater, but a similar ritual. Where is that ritual headed? At some point, will movies just get beamed into our mind's eyes? I know that a segment of cultural critics always claim that every new technological advance has ruined something else: VCRs ruined going to the movies, etc., but meanwhile movie-going still exists. I'm just saying...some things do disappear. Video stores and record stores unfortunately seem to be casualties of these "advancements."

Anyway. Here's that piece from my first website. (By the way, nowadays an encounter like this would end a lot sooner.)

Silent Fight with a Deaf Mute

Sometimes I make ravioli for dinner, and providing I'm not going to be smooching anyone, I make a dressing of olive oil and raw garlic, which is quite delish but results in the most phenomenally bad breath you can imagine. Teeth-brushing, gargling with Listerine, and mints barely make a dent in the garlic's lingering presence; only time carries it fully away. So after one of these ravioli sessions last night, I went over to my friend Kim's apartment and tried to keep a considerate distance, keep a candle between us, talk in the other direction, etc. Over the course of a few hours I had three beers and left with maybe a *slight* buzz.

On the way home, I was leaning on a pillar on the subway platform at 14th Street. A little man came up to me, leaning in close, and gestured at his folding subway map, pointing and looking questioningly at me and making little hummy sounds so that I realized he was a deaf mute and was asking whether he could get the train to Bleecker here. Yes, I nodded. He was grateful for the help but visibly repulsed by my breath, scrunching up his face and shaking his head no. Then he pointed to me, did the universal gesture for drinking (jerking his fist with thumb out toward his mouth as a bottle) and then mimed someone being ridiculously staggering drunk and then pointed to me and shook his head "no."

"No, I'm fine..." I said, shaking my head.

He vigorously shook his head no and again did the town-drunk-style mime again, this time pretending to be me falling into the path of the subway and the train coming and me getting decapitated. Shook his head no again, and gestured that for him, one drink, OK, two, OK. lots (like I apparently always have) NOT OK! I will fall into the path of the subway and get decapitated. Not just that, but he gestured to his torso. what did that mean--someone will steal my kidney?

I felt the need to explain my perhaps misunderstood stench. I took out an envelope and wrote GARLIC.

He wrote, CAREFUL, underlining it multiple times. I nodded that I was fine, and he wrote, GUM.
ALREADY DID, I wrote, getting annoyed.

then he wrote, BEER EVERY NO, underlining it, and pointing to the CAREFUL again. I had the impression I was talking with a spirit through a Ouija board. I was also getting pissed, and tried to gesture him away that I was fine. He gestured that I was pretty, and I thought, Nooo shit. lucky me. The insulting deaf mute thinks I'm hot.

He continued showing me through gestures his certainty that I was a flailing drunk and was about to get decapitated. Not only that, but while drunk I was also going to pass out and wake up knocked up.

"Beh-by" he squeaked out, desperately trying to warn me.

PLAY NO STOP, he wrote.

OK, BUT YOU DON'T KNOW ME, I wrote, angrily.

NICE TO MEET YOU TOO, he wrote.

(!!!!)

AGE YOU, he wrote.

OLD ENOUGH TO KNOW BETTER, I wrote.

42, he wrote, pointing to himself.

I LIKE YOU NICE GOOD he wrote, and i just kind of gave a "Yeah great, whatever," look and looked away.

Then he gestured for me not to be scared of him, that he's a good guy--thumbs up. He took out a small paperback with some kind of affirmation title like Here is the Help You Need, and on the inside back cover he'd written two phrases. He showed me the first one, covering the second:

I AM SERIOS WITH YOU.

And then the second, I AM NOT STUPID. (Apparently he had to claim this a lot.)

I tried to ignore him as he continued pointing at me doing his impression of me as the staggering wasteoid, with my inevitable dual dooms of pregnancy and decapitation, and when the subway came I eagerly went to take a little step towards it, still a good three or four feet away, and he quickly held me back, thinking he had saved me from certain death. (I wonder how he supposed i lasted five minutes in this world without his direction.)

Of course he tried to squeeze in next to me on the train but was forced to sit across instead. I carefully studied the ads, avoiding eye contact. At Bleecker, he pointed at me and at his head, like, BE SMART, and I did the same--saying to him, no, YOU be smart.

To Catch a Teabagger

2009-10-21T11:43:07-05:00

(Image)

Last night someone using the handle "SVO" posted an 850-word comment on my other blog, Abandoned Baton Rouge. Disheartened by the decline of his former neighborhood, SVO recounted his story of growing up there. Feel free to skim it all the way to the bottom, where the comment takes an unexpected turn:

How sad to see the old Baton Rouge go, but we all know why don't we? Think the letter 'N'. And I'm not ashamed one bit to say so.

Uhhhhh, no. We don't all know what word beginning with the letter "N" ruined Baton Rouge. Nachos? Nerds? Nylons?

But I'm just being cute. Unfortunately, I do get the drift of what SVO is saying.

I decided to look into SVO's identity, which was a breeze using the email address he provided when leaving a racist comment on a blog. (He really must not be ashamed!)

First I found his LinkedIn profile. Then I found his Meetup profile and saw that he was a member of a Glenn Beck group and a 9/12 group. A-ha! So what we have here is a prime example of genus teabaggus maximus.

From SVO's Meetup profile:

I'm so disgusted with this country and its elitist government that I have to meet like minded folks or I'm going to go nuts or MOVE to Thailand or the Ukraine! We've got to DO something to wake them up! My problem is that I READ TOO MUCH!

(He does know that Thailand is swarming with Ts, right?)

Here is someone who thinks he's fighting the power, defending Real Amurrikuh, who positions himself as a persecuted and marginalized other when he's actually just a bigot.

Nonetheless, I was captivated by SVO. I'm curious to learn about teabaggers. You know, what are they into when they're not being teabagged and holding up misspelled signs with pictures of Obama with a Hitler moustache? What, for example, do they wish for from Amazon.com? And thanks to SVO's ignorance (he reads too much, but clearly didn't read anything advising him not to be so traceable when writing hate online), I was able to see for myself.

The following is a selection of items from SVO's Wish List.

A steel survival knife with 7-inch blade.

A survival combat knife.

Books such as:

The Constitution in Exile: How the Federal Government Has Seized Power by Rewriting the Supreme Law of the Land
Lincoln Unmasked: What You're Not Supposed to Know About Dishonest Abe
Tax Havens of the World
The Offshore Money Book
The Complete Nail Technician (Hairdressing and Beauty Industry Authority) (?)
Bulletproof Privacy: How to Live Hidden, Happy, and Free!
DMT: The Spirit Molecule: A Doctor's Revolutionary Research into the Biology of Near-Death and Mystical Experiences
Invasion: How America Still Welcomes Terrorists Criminals & Other Foreign Menaces to Our Shores
Numerous titles about the Ukraine
Numerous historic titles on the South, the Civil War, and slavery, including Taking a Stand: Portraits from the Southern Secession Movement; Arguing with Historians: Essays on the Historical and the Unhistorical; States' Rights and the Union: Imperium in Imperio; The Southern Nation: The New Rise of the Old South; Why the South Lost the Civil War

Music by artists such as Seals and Crofts, Jim Croce, Gordon Lightfoot. What, no Cat Stevens? Of course not--he's now Yusuf Islam, aka Yusaf Terrorist!

Survival gear including a solar battery charger and other portable power, a solar/crank radio, walkie-talkies, a rechargeable shake flashlight, a digital all-hazard alert notifier.

Well, that was unsettling. I'm actually terrified of this guy now, hence my not revealing his name or email address. Please don't contact him.

This post has been brought to you by the letter "N."

I Make the Salads that Make the Young Girls Cry

2009-10-19T09:25:06-05:00

Above is a sign I've been meaning to photograph for probably about a year now. You know, just in case any of you need it.

Below is another one.

Which driving school would you rather: "ALERT," or another local school called Angelwood? The former has the classic misused quotation marks, negating the word they're trying to emphasize, and the latter name contains a word for someone who used to be alive. Neither instill much confidence, driving school owners.

So, weekend went very well. The weather was fabulous, it finally feels like fall. We got to turn off the AC and had to put on the heat.

In addition to taking those photos above, I got to do a few more things I've been meaning to do for a long time: the major one was cleaning out the hubbs' office, which has been in disarray since we moved in. Again, it's amazing how much more sane it makes you feel to have order and open space. (That makes the TV show Hoarders that much more disturbing.)

On Saturday the farmers' market had a Farm to Table promotion by Toyota, where we got to try numerous little dishes made by local chefs with ingredients from the market, and we test drove a silent hybrid Highlander SUV, for which we were each rewarded with free maple cutting boards. I just want to put it out there: I can be bought. If Toyota wants to buy my love further, I will have nothing but effusive praise for them.Oh, what a feeling, and so on.

On Sunday, I woke up early and hung out with the garden and the dogs for a few hours, taking photos as the sun crept over the plants, feeling like I was cheating by using the morning sun. It makes it too easy. I posted some favorite photos here.

I notice the hubbs and I spending more time with our garden as it progresses. I look out every morning, and it's the first thing I do after work, go out and inspect and see what's new and what got bigger or turned a new color. He wants to get into doing green roofs professionally when we get back to Brooklyn, and I'm hoping we can have one of our own. We're already planning to bring back our cayenne tree--and it is becoming a tree. Where it will go--who knows? We have a lot more things now than space back there. Hopefully our apartment won't look like a hoarder's when we move back.

Funny, my eye for living quarters has changed since we moved. I looked at photos online from someone who was looking for a roommate in Brooklyn. His place looked a lot like our apartment in Brooklyn; that was my first thought. It also looked...pretty crummy in the kitchen department. Which led to the third thought: our kitchen in Brooklyn is crummy. Already knew that, but will know it more upon return.

Speaking of kitchens (wow, what a smooth transition), the husband and I both had some more cooking success this weekend, including a spontaneous macaroni salad to bring along to Saturday night festivities. The first festivity was our friends' two-year-old's birthday party. Normally I am not big on adults going to birthday parties for young children, but this one had the last local half-keg of Brooklyn Lager, so there you go: Now adult-friendly. The birthday girl named my mac salad when she tried some of it, then burst into tears. She was expecting it to be creamy and cheesy macaroni and cheese, but what she got was spicy and tangy with little bits of peppers and minced onions and such: everything a kid doesn't want. (Welcome to life, kid. It's time she learned.) So it's now the Mac Salad that Makes the Young Girls Cry (no one else was moved to tears, BTW).

Anyhoo, just a real gem of a weekend, and I love October, and will be carving my gray heirloom pumpkin soon, and yay.

The Youngs and the Olds

2009-10-12T09:50:52-05:00

Early on Saturday, I departed with friends Kevin and Alicia to observe some Cajuns in their natural habitat. First we went to the Zydeco brunch in Breaux Bridge, which was amazing. Not the brunch so much, because due to a crazy mix-up we never had any food: it was the dancing. It was more than the dancing, really.

While the three of us agreed the band wasn't music we would listen to on purpose at home, they were part of something larger here, and I couldn't think of a more rocking show I'd been to all year. The dance floor was packed with revelers, the floor pulsed with their steps in time, and it wasn't yet noon. Here's the thing: collectively it seemed there was something more in the room than just sounds and people moving in time. Like, isn't this the transcendent feeling you want from a musical performance or any kind of mass gathering, really that hardly ever happens? Yes.

I hope I'm not overstating the Zydeco brunch, but I wouldn't want to understate it either.

Most of the dancers were older than us thirty-somethings, and Alicia and I pointed out our favorite cute olds to each other: the lanky dude with longer white hair who looked like he should be in a Western, the compact but energetic smaller guy with the cap. An unexpected discovery for me was the dance floor probably had a higher percentage of interracial couples than Boerum Hill, Brooklyn (which is much higher than average). We also enjoyed the guy dancing the hardest, whose T-shirt read THE PARTY HAS ARRIVED.

Oh! And I got to hear some real Cajuns talking. What they said, only they can know for sure.

Southern Louisiana has again proven to have fun olds. I marveled watching them: so often in this country, old age is tragic. This might be a good place to move if you want to avoid that "death's waiting room" stage.

Departing from our brunchless brunch, we found this sleepy-eyed girl with a yip yip dog I would normally dislike, but awww won't you just look at this girl!

Next stop was the Festival Acadiens et Creoles in Lafayette.

Again, youngs and olds were out in full force. I think for most of my adult life I've mostly hung around people within ten years of my age. Here it tends to range all over the place.

There was more live music, and more dancers, these ones (including some from brunch) not so concentrated in one place so it wasn't so moving, though it was touching that they weren't stopped by a little rain.

The other two main elements of this festival were food and mud.

The food here did not disappoint. I had a French spinach bread bowl and some of Alicia's bread pudding. Kevin & Leesh will have to remind me what they had in this photo. I'm guessing that's gator and frog on a stick there.

Attention: Everything pictured below is trademarked, so don't even think about it.

This girl was so ridiculously cute she can cause even the least maternally inclined to have stirrings. I just wanted to keep tugging her little pigtail curls and have them spring back into shape. I only did it once though, so as not to be creepy.

Looking back at my photos from Saturday, it seemed the olds and the youngs were ruling the day. We tried posing for some good pictures on this playground turtle with ZZ Top beards made of Spanish moss...

But without trying and without props these kids did it better.

Again, maybe pose for a little Facebook photo?

No, this one's kind of better again, isn't it.

Maybe that day the best we could hope for was to coexist with them.

Kids, right?!

And olds.

Oh, really.

2009-10-04T21:48:35-05:00

All on one free record!

Grill 'Em All

2009-09-28T19:12:01-05:00

While my friends and family back North are sweatering into autumn, a season I very much miss, it's still grilling weather here, and so we hosted Grill 'Em All on Saturday in honor of the hubbs' birthday.

We got the cheapest and best local shrimp we know about at this roadside truck, above. Yes, people buy seafood off the back of a truck at roadside stands here, which doesn't sound so advisable, but it's actually fine. It's a good feeling to buy dinner from someone who probably is related to the fishermen or at least knows them.

The hubbs set to dismembering the shrimp, while I made three sides: smoked onion dip (from the excellent barbecue cookbook She Smoke, which I recommend), pico de gallo for chips (from Joy of Cooking, which probably does not need my recommendation), and my own specialty, Devilish Potato Salad (which was universally acclaimed). As I tweak that recipe, it keeps getting better the more unhealthy I make it. (Who knew? Oh: everyone did.) Kevin grilled up a bunch of purple okra, which like the potato salad, gets better the more unhealthy it is, aka charred (extra cancer!). The shrimp were spicily delicious, as were the veggies (all local, some from as hyperlocal as our garden). Hubbs had obtained two mini-kegs of Brooklyn Lager (new to this part of the country) so all in all, we were rather proud of our spread.

With colored mood lighting strung about the semi-tropical yard, it seemed unreal that we have such a space at our daily disposal. I mused yet again that we we don't use our yard enough.

Also making an appearance at our gathering were gator po'boys. That's right: alligator. If you'd asked me a few years ago, I never would have thought I'd host an event where gator was served. But, like sands through the hourglass, so les bon temps roulez.

Lazy Sunday was ideal for a lounge in the hammock, trying to read but getting hypnotized by the horizontal beams from the setting sun. I wondered if it would seem strange at first to not have banana plants and flowers almost year round when we move back North. And so, in several ways I accomplished a goal from the last post already: savor those aspects I like about Louisiana. I often have to remind myself to do that one, despite the many good times we have here.

Goals for the Semester

2009-09-20T15:41:34-05:00

Here in Baton Rouge, it's a new school year. The hubbs and I have approximately 250 days left in Baton Rouge, not that anyone has an online countdown bookmarked or anything. In addition to a general resolution to make self-promotional efforts or write on every one of those days (because to paraphrase bff ecs, you can't get mad about not getting jobs you never applied for), I've come up with a few more specific resolutions.

In homage to a hand-written list on a paper towel found in our then-new residence two years ago, I present my goals for the semester. Or really, for the school year. (If you're unfamiliar with said list, click the link to see it or the next bit won't make as much sense.)

The sad part about this is I started this post on September 5 but we were out of paper towels, so I had to wait til we could afford to go grocery shopping (don't ask).

Down by the Riverside: the Shrimp and Petroleum Festival

2009-09-10T11:13:29-05:00

Each Labor Day weekend since moving here, the hubbs and I have been captivated by the Shrimp and Petroleum Festival (which, if you haven't heard, exists). The foremost draw was the insane name, and with encouragement from their effusive website, we also hoped for new and unusual culinary adventures. Since hubbs was probably on hour 200 of his school/studio week come S&P Festival time the last two years, it wasn't possible to go sooner. But we were finally able to make it this year because it's totally SENIOR YEAR.

The name Shrimp and Petroleum Festival conjures either an image of shrimp struggling in an oil spill or simply a giant question mark. But! Petroleum and shrimp are the industries of Morgan City, where the festival is held, and word is that shrimp are drawn to offshore oil rigs, which is probably about as healthy as it sounds.

Very well. We made the approximately 1-hour drive southwest to Morgan City, along levees, past rickety fishing camps, past a sign urging drivers to not do wheelies in the parking lot.

The hubbs and I were practically rubbing our hands and drooling in anticipation as we approached the fair, imagining something like the food stands Jazz Fest and perhaps a bit spoiled from the street foods in Thailand. What kinds of crazy shrimp dishes might they have? It would probably be like when Bubba from Forrest Gump listed all the dishes you could make with shrimp, which at the rate we're going is what we'll sound like when we return to NYC.

One of the first fair-goers we saw after parking walked by eating a blooming onion on a Styrofoam plate. It must be some shrimp version of a blooming onion, I ventured. No-- it was just a battered, deep-fried onion. As we'd soon find out, "battered and deep fried" described almost every other food item available for purchase at this festival.

Our first brief stop was the gospel stage in an old school gym to catch a rousing rendition of "Down by the Riverside," where we stood awkwardly and I realized the indie-rock show half-dancing sway did not work here. If we didn't leave soon, we might be detected, and that's always been my deterrent with live gospel performances/ potential voyeuristic visits to rollicking gospel masses. It's great, it's moving, but I want to be an invisible observer.

We eagerly made our way up the first midway we encountered, situated ever so picturesquely under an elevated highway overpass. (To paraphrase my friend Kara when I mentioned this, WTF, LA? Aesthetics?) Scanning past choices like novelty meats (enlarge photo below for examples) and bacon and ranch loaded fries, I spotted what I wanted right away: Fried Green Tomato Poboy with Shrimp Remoulade, but checked all other food stands first to make sure.

Nothing sounded better than that sandwich: not the shark on a stick, not the fried squirrel, not the Cajun fried coon. My poboy bun was approximately the size of a loaf of sliced sandwich bread, and all the sandwich contents except the remoulade were battered and deep fried. Sigh. So disappointing, given the promising name.

The husband-folk fared no better. He got crabmeat balls (deep fried, battered) and shrimp on a stick (deep fried, battered), which he found to be a little too expensive for what they were.

The only non-battered, non-deep-fried shrimp in sight occupied a Styrofoam takeout container in front of the man across the communal table from me, the guy who, according to his T-shirt, was not only a legendary fisherman but also a chick magnet. Dining neighbor guy number two confided that he was breaking up all the shrimp-eating with some real food, a chipped corned beef sandwich bursting with piled-on meat bits. Chick Magnet grunted in agreement, as if the 40 jumbo shrimp he was methodically putting away were merely appetizers. "There's no way you gonna finish that," said Guy Number Two, nodding toward my mailbox-sized poboy. He was right, I assured him. "Off to the next round," said Guy Two as he took off.

The rest of the festival was situated in the park, a square with lovely old-fashioned homes with porches facing the green. We ran into our pal Amy, who regaled us with tales from Teddy's Juke Joint the night before. From there, we continued through the historic district to the Atchafalaya Riverfront, which had a row of shops (closed, for some reason, on a heavy foot-traffic day that surely would have brought them business) with covered walkways reminiscent of a commercial street in the Old West. Why not situate the stands under the aforementioned overpass in this area?

"You got a light?" a loitering teenager asked the hubbs as we passed by him.

"Nah, sorry."

The kid issued a tsk and a muttered something derogatory we didn't catch.

"Excuse me?" Hubbs turned around toward the kid, a challenge now in the air.

The kid repeated his response: "Then you're fuckin' old."

Well, blow me down. For once the hubbs didn't have a comeback, and mine were too unkind and unfair to say-- for all I knew maybe he didn't already have two kids at age 16. I was already laughing, and it got funnier the further away we walked.

Time to get out of town. Well, that sure wasn't worth it*, we agreed, with an hour drive ahead. But at least we scored this koozie:

* Maybe this report seems harsh. It's just that...this festival could have tourists flocking to it if there were a little more competition between the food stands and they branched away from the models of fried & battered and novelty foods. Also, no presence from LA brewery Abita--they should really be doing events like this. & It just makes no sense that the shops on the street along the river aren't open on a festival day. Just saying.