Food writing at it’s entertaining best. This is the guy (a wonderful character – who else would use the rather naughty The Stranglers’ Peaches as a theme tune) who brought me to Dooky Chase and Paul Prudhomme – I let the latter know of this 20 year journey and he very kindly sent me a lovely inscribed…
Today is Louis Armstrong’s birthday, in my view a musical titan to match the likes of Wagner. No artist has given me such pleasure as Pops as well as being a perennial symbol or a paragon of dignity in trying circumstances. Below are two of my favourite photos of Pops. I also highly recommend you…
It’s been just over a week since Hubig’s Pies burnt to the ground. To get a sense of the importance of this institution here is no less the NYT and the local view from NOLA.com. foodHubigHubig’s New Orleans Style Pieshubig’s piesnew orleansPies and Pastry
Check out the terrific artistry of Paul Rogers (no, not the PR from a rather successful 70s beat combo). Paul’s work reminds me a great deal of Rockwell Kent‘s work – now that is high praise indeed. Paul’s jazz drawings is a world away from the schlock that typically populates Jackson Square. Though I like…
Once one has worked the brashness and tat of Bourbon Street through one’s system the best way to discover NOLA is to take a bicycle tour through the Confederacy of Cruisers. Not only is the owner/operator Jeff Shyman a history buff giving a warts and all appreciation of NOLA but he is also another “character” that…
I was interested to read Jan Ramsey’s OffBeat discussion of the relative failure of NOLA to honour it’s most famous (and of course America’s most famous art form, Jazz) not to mention the rather patchy public space recognition accorded to its most famous musical sons and daughters. Plaques such as located at the site of Cosimo…
Here’s a review from the very excellent Journal of Jazz Studies. Along with Teachout’s “Pops” I can also highly recommend Ricky Riccardi’s What a Wonderful World: The Magic of Louis Armstrong’s Later Years since together one gets a fuller and more rounded picture of America’s greatest art form and greatest artist. Both Teachout and Riccardi are masterful…
It’s been exactly five years since this “blog” began. So I thought I’d mark the occasion with an unlikely pairing – Plato and “Fats” Domino, the latter arguably the earliest pioneer of what we have come to recognize as rock ‘n roll. Eldridge Cleaver or somebody said that, with rock, the blacks gave the middle…
The topic of economics is not within my usual ambit (I do retain a tangential epistemological interest) but it’s certainly timely and Steve Horwitz always brings an astringency of good sense (however unfashionable that might be) to the knee-jerk economic issues of the day. Because of my passionate interest in New Orleans Steve’s thesis has…
manwithoutqualities 