|
|
Friday, December 30, 2005
Balls and All
So, this morning I got my first ball invitation of the 2006 Carnival season. That's not really surprising in itself: my partner and I have been on this particular krewe's list for a while, and the krewe captain is generally good about sending invites early. And of course, Carnival does start in less than a week.... No, what's striking is that the invitation came by email, which has never happened before. I'm sure some people will turn up their noses at the innovation--and I'll admit, there is something rather sweet and charming about receiving invitations through the US Postal Service--but given the fact that New Orleans' mail carriers are still delivering stuff from August, it's probably a smart idea. I just thank goddess that the invitation came in the form of a jpeg version of the card, which made it look kinda like the real thing. Sending out an Evite to a Carnival ball would've crossed some kinda line. Regardless of how the invitation was sent, the important part is that New Orleans will be celebrating Carnival in 2006. Yeah, it's been said countless times in the news and on the street, but it didn't really hit home with me until I saw the evidence first-hand. It's happening--it's really, really happening, Sally Field. Anyone wanna go corset shopping?
Thursday, December 29, 2005
So, I'm back. From outer space. Well, insofar as Mississippi counts as outer space. (It has its moments, believe me.) Alas, nothing terribly exciting to report. Jonno attended his first-ever Christmas dinner with my family. He did remarkably well, considering that Jonno was raised Catholic, my family is hardcore Southern Baptist (though they're thorougly accepting of us), and, as fate would have it, he'd just begun reading Sam Harris' scathing indictment of religion, The End of Faith. Luckily, he was outside having a smoke when dad rounded everybody up, instructed us to hold hands, and said grace for nearly five minutes. Seriously, it was, like, almost Pentacostal. But while I got plenty of face-time with dad and my brothers, unfortunately I didn't get to see my biological mother and my sister. I'd planned to drive over and see them in Columbus, but stuff got in the way--notably my job, which doesn't seem to let up, even when our offices are closed.... I did, however, have lunch with my adoptive mother and her sister and a first cousin I haven't seen in 25 years. And lemme just say, I'm glad I didn't have the chance to inherit their genes: the men in that family have a tendency to go all Manson-y after 30. That's not to say I have no news. I do, indeed:
1. For starters, the Catholic church looks like it's going to put the kibosh on Limbo. As a heathen Protestant, that doesn't mean much to me, of course, but it does make it perfectly clear that Pope Whathisname and all the members of his little Red Hat Club can, in fact, change doctrine if they damn well please. When they're going to come to their senses and allow priests to marry and such, however, is another matter altogether....
2. There was an article on CNN.com about disaster tourism--which had nothing whatsoever to do with the coming bus tours of New Orleans' levee breaches--but there was a good quote in it nonetheless. In defending his company's mining practices in Appalachia--practices which many locals dislike because they're destructive to the environment and negatively impact the mountainous skyline--a spokesman said, "To imply that we're flattening Appalachia is so untrue.... We're creating level land for Appalachia." I'm so stealing that line for my next show: To the Devil, a Coal Miner's Daughter, starring the cast of Snuffy Smith.
3. Sitting in front of the TV last night, lamenting the fact that Project Runway is on hiatus 'till next week (though Diana's blog is kinda fun), we saw a commercial for this DVD, which we thought was surely a joke. Alas, a joke it ain't. Apparently John Walsh has gone off the deep end. If anyone has clips, send 'em my way--I've got a party coming up, and it looks like the perfect background eyecandy.
4. Speaking of Pentecostals, apparently Bernice and her bob are surefire signs that Judgement Day is just around the corner. Better get your shopping done now, before it's too late!
Friday, December 23, 2005
LIMERICKS FOR CHRISTMAS
New Orleans, 2005
The Ladies of 70118
have been politically minded of late,
petitioning holiday hordes
for one levee board
as we buy gifts for relatives we hate.
Arnaud's has reopened its doors--
So have Lilette, Dick and Jenny's, and more--
but Commander's remains clad
in locks, which is sad,
'cause that bread pudding shit is to die for.
Our postman is walking his beat,
and garbage trucks now roam the streets,
the power stays on,
and the curfew is gone...
a new mayor, and life would be complete.
Thursday, December 22, 2005
Dear Daniel Franco: We hardly knew ye. Again. Your appearance on the premiere season of Project Runway was so brief, I can't even remember it. You were the first designer cut, but you redeemed yourself during the reunion episode when you called Tim Gunn a "hot bitch." Truer words were never spoken. Then, lo and behold, you showed up for season two. Whether your return was due to moxie on your part or shrewd underdog casting by the show's producers, we all loved it, and we were rooting for you. Until the lingerie challenge. True, that Santino guy is a total schmuck, and his stuff looked unfinished, but you...I mean, seriously, what were you thinking? Did you go rummaging through Rue McClanahan's armoire for inspiration? Those three pieces weren't lingerie, they were foundation garments. But never mind that momentary lapse in judgement. Design concepts aside, you'll be happy to know that a room full of fags and one sassy lady screamed in horrified unison when Heidi Klum called your name hier soir. You looked so sad, so disappointed--but you pulled it together (not like that stupid, annoying Andra�) and walked away with your head held high. That's gotta count for something. Not, like, a job or a fashion spread in Elle magazine, but something, surely.... Anyway, the gang and I want you to know that if you ever need a change of scenery, there's a room down here with your name on it. New Orleans may be a bit small right now, but we're growing--and we're certainly in the national spotlight. Plus, Carnival's just around the corner: you could probably score some ducats making last-minute ball gowns and such.... Wherever life takes you, Daniel, just know that, like Sandy Bernhard once said, as long as I have a face, your chubby little ass will always have a place to sit. All our love from the New Atlantis,
Richard
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
So, the show is still going remarkably well. The cast have gotten comfortable in their parts--comfortable enough to experiment with hamming every now and then--the pace is nice and fast, and perhaps most importantly, the audiences have been coming. Seriously: it's like the Tokyo subway in there. Still, there's a part of me--albeit a small part, and it's shrinking every day--that wonders if this was the right thing to do. I mean, is mounting a white trash trailer park Chriskwaanzukkah musical responsible or respectful just three months after nearly everyone in the audience has endured the worst natural disaster in US history? Luckily, the answer I arrive at every time is "Yes." In fact, "Hell, yes!" These days, New Orleanians are inundated (no pun intended) with information about Katrina and recovery efforts via TV, internet, radio, internet radio, newspapers, magazines, billboards, and broadsides. We see the storm's effects first-hand as we repair our houses and drive through neighborhoods still marked with high-water lines on our way to the suburbs for groceries. Sure, there's rebuilding going on, and the city's reinventing itself faster than nearly anyone imagined, but we've still got a ways to go before we move from our current broken eggs to the metaphorical omelette. An hour of theatrical escapism is clearly what many folks need right now. Of course, that won't stop others from criticizing. I've already heard rumors that some theatre folks are bitter about our committment to comedy and our refusal to acknowledge Katrina onstage--to which I say, "If you feel so strongly about it, do it your own damn self." Me and the people I work with, we do funny. Drama--especially social drama--ain't in our bag of tricks. Sure, we could give it a try, but I can guarantee it'd be a load of junk. Besides, given all the horrendous theatre, dance, and other art we saw after September 11, I'm sure there'll be a similar load of Katrina-inspired crap on the market soon. Just give it a month.
Monday, December 19, 2005
Media exposés on pedophilia have never really done it for me. They're invariably overwrought and smarmy, following the same predictable narrative path, with minimal variation thrown in for local color: "my uncle/neighbor/ski instructor asked me to lunch/help clean the gutters/stay after class, and then he touched my hand/head/elbow." Cue the creepy music and the grainy video, and tell Ms. Walters she's on in five. Of course, in all these cases, the adults are men. We know perfectly well that in the handful of cases where women are the "sexual predators", the young boys they've slept with are greeted with barely concealed locker room glee. Yeah, when Geraldo arrives, they try to tell the same story of victimization, but off-camera we know that their dads and friends and dad's friends are all, like, "Gimme five, Marvin! Big ups for gettin' hot with teacher, buddy!" My biggest problem with all these stories is that the kids in them take very little responsibility for their actions and the media let them off easy: that is, little Timmy refuses to admit that he's a walking erection and that he really wanted to fool around with the hot, studly football coach after the game and that he enjoyed it so much he kept doing it for years, and then Katie Couric lets that side of the story drop. (Of course, it's obvious I'm not talking about rape scenarios here--that's an entirely different ball of wax. No, I'm talking about sex that was, at the time it occurred, consensual, but since then the teen has had homosex remorse and has begun screaming "victim.") I'm sure some of you are wondering why the hell I'm talking about underage sex at 8:00am on a Monday. Well, over coffee this morning, I stumbled across this piece in the New York Times, and although the written article is pretty typical of the genre (hello, the word "sordid" is in the headline?), the accompanying video begins rather interestingly. The Lolito in question seems reasonably self-aware and in control, comfortable with the fact that he is a sexual being and even more comfortable with the fact that not so long ago, he was making bejillions of bucks from his naughty webcam. A few segments later, though, the schmaltziness of reporter Kurt Eichenwald begins to take its toll, and by the end, the boy's calling his former sugardaddies "bad people," and claiming that they made his remarkably well-funded adolescence a living hell. Now, I know not every kid is ready to start getting busy when he or she is 13 or 14, but c'mon: some certainly are. Hell, I know I was a little more precocious than most kids my age, but surely I wasn't the only person in America taking comfort in the arms of friends and strangers--some of whom were considerably older than I...
Friday, December 16, 2005
Shop New Orleans
Whether you live in Williamsburg or Wilmington or Walla-Walla, why not use the worldwide interweb highway to support New Orleans this holiday season? As luck would have it, there's now a convenient, semi-sassy website with links to locally owned shops that carry everything from Andalusian antiques to zesty zeppole (though personally, I'd veer away from the latter). And if you live here in Louisiana, remember this weekend is the state's much-ballyhooed, shorter-than-expected tax holiday. Your goodies won't be completely tax-free, but you know.... Personally, I'm hoping to get all of my shopping done at the Bywater Art Market. If you're around, slap me on the ass and say "hi," why don'cha?
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
My new favorite Katrina pic: this shot of a downtown garbage can featuring New Orleans' ever-perky mascot, Becky Allen--who, as fate would have it, considers herself my aunt, but that's a story for another time...
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
Chris Rose is the kind of guy who knows he's clever and funny and laughs at his own jokes. There's some smugness there, too, and something else I can't quite put my finger on. It's safe to say, I'm not his biggest fan. I'm putting aside those feelings for the moment, though, 'cause today Mr. Rose has written one of the most laudable, ballsy statements on the future of Carnival and the city that I've seen (mostly in response to this protest). So, I'm sorry to post yet another article from yet another newspaper, but I just can't help myself. Besides, it's easier than writing this stuff on my own...
We're having Mardi Gras and that's final
The Mardi Gras thing. It's not on the table. It's not a point of negotiation or a bargaining chip.
We're going to have it and that's that. End of discussion.
Folks in faraway places are going to feel the misery of missing it, and that is a terrible thing. In the past, I have missed the season a couple of times because of story assignments elsewhere, and it sucked to be away from the center of the universe and not be a part of this city's fundamental, quintessential and indelible cultural landmark.
But we can't turn off the lights and keep the costumes in storage and ladders in the shed for another year just because we are beaten and broken and because so many of us are not here.
In fact, we have to do this because we are beaten and broken and so many of us are not here.
Katrina has proved, more than ever, that we are resilient. We are tougher than dirt. Certainly tougher than the dirt beneath our levees.
The social and celebratory nature of this event defines this city, and this is no time to lose definition. The edges are too blurry already.
Some folks say it sends the wrong message, but here's the thing about that: New Orleans is in a very complicated situation as far as "sending a message" goes these days. It's a tricky two-way street.
On one hand, it is vital to our very survival that the world outside of here understand just how profoundly and completely destroyed this city is right now, with desolate power grids and hundreds of thousands of residents living elsewhere and in limbo.
Jobs, businesses and the public spirit are all about as safely shored as the 17th Street Canal floodwall. We're leaking. And we could very well breach in the coming year or two.
We very well could.
On the other hand, we need to send a message that we are still New Orleans. We are the soul of America. We embody the triumph of the human spirit. Hell, we ARE Mardi Gras.
And Zulu can say they're only playing if they get it their way and Rex can say nothing at all and the mayor -- our fallen and befuddled rock star -- can say that he wants it one day and he doesn't want it the next day, but the truth is: It's not up to any of them.
It's up to me now. And we're having it.
And here's a simple, not-so-eloquent reason why: If we don't have Mardi Gras, then the terrorists win. The last thing we need right now is to divide ourselves over our most cherished event.
If the national news wants to show people puking on Bourbon Street as a metaphor for some sort of displaced priorities in this town, so be it. The only puking I've seen at Mardi Gras in the past 10 years is little babies throwing up on their mothers' shoulders after a bottle.
To encapsulate the notion of Mardi Gras as nothing more than a big drunk is to take the simple and stupid way out, and I, for one, am getting tired of staying stuck on simple and stupid.
Mardi Gras is not a parade. Mardi Gras is not girls flashing on French Quarter balconies. Mardi Gras is not an alcoholic binge.
Mardi Gras is bars and restaurants changing out all the CDs in their jukeboxes to Professor Longhair and the Neville Brothers, and it is annual front-porch crawfish boils hours before the parades so your stomach and attitude reach a state of grace, and it is returning to the same street corner, year after year, and standing next to the same people, year after year -- people whose names you may or may not even know but you've watched their kids grow up in this public tableau and when they're not there, you wonder: Where are those guys this year?
It is dressing your dog in a stupid costume and cheering when the marching bands go crazy and clapping and saluting the military bands when they crisply snap to.
Now, that part, more than ever.
It's mad piano professors converging on our city from all over the world and banging the 88s until dawn and laughing at the hairy-shouldered men in dresses too tight and stalking the Indians under the Claiborne overpass and thrilling on the years you find them and lamenting the years you don't and promising yourself you will next year.
It's wearing frightful color combinations in public and rolling your eyes at the guy in your office who -- like clockwork, year after year -- denies that he got the baby in the king cake and now someone else has to pony up the 10 bucks for the next one.
Mardi Gras is the love of life. It is the harmonic convergence of our food, our music, our creativity, our eccentricity, our neighborhoods and our joy of living. All at once.
And it doesn't really matter if there are superparades or even any parades at all this year. Because some group of horn players will grab their instruments and they will march Down the Avenue because that's what they do, and I, for one, will follow.
If there are no parades, I'm hitching a boombox to a wagon, putting James Booker on the CD player and pulling my kids Down the Avenue and you're welcome to come along with me and where more than two tribes gather, there is a parade.
We are the parade. We are Mardi Gras. We're Whoville, man -- you can take away the beads and the floats and all that crazy stuff, but we're still coming out into the street. Cops or no cops. Post-parade garbage pick-up or no garbage pick-up -- like anyone could tell the friggin' difference!
If you are stuck somewhere else, in some other town, then bring it to them. If you got a job somewhere else now, take off that Tuesday and get all the New Orleanians you know and gather in a park somewhere and cook up a mass of food and put some music on a box and raise a little hell.
And raise a glass to us, brothers and sisters, because we're in here fighting this fight and we'll raise a glass to you because you cannot be here with us and we know you want to. Let the whole damn country hear Al Johnson yelling "It's Carnival Time" and let them know we're not dead and if we are dying, we're going to pretend like we're not.
Fly the flag. Be in that number. This is our battle to win or lose. Hopefully, of one mind and one message. That we are still here. And that we are still New Orleans.
-- Times-Picayune, 13 December 2005
Monday, December 12, 2005
Yesterday's op-ed piece in the New York Times may be a bit strident, but it works, beautifully and eloquently. No, it doesn't take into consideration the fact that New Orleans is, indeed, rebounding, slowly but surely, fueled by the chutzpah and determination of its residents. Nor does it take into account that there are, indeed, a number of federal spending bills in place, ready to be approved as soon as we've finished local assessments and planning. And I strongly disagree with the author's last sentence: it is we, the residents of New Orleans, to decide whether our city lives or dies.... Still, for the rest of America, for those not living here, for who can't witness first-hand our resolve to get through this, it's as persuasive an argument as we could've asked for. If only our elected officials could be this articulate. [FYI, the whole article should be available in its original form via the New York Times' rss feed, but I'm posting it below, just in case.]
DEATH OF AN AMERICAN CITY
We are about to lose New Orleans. Whether it is a conscious plan to let the city rot until no one is willing to move back or honest paralysis over difficult questions, the moment is upon us when a major American city will die, leaving nothing but a few shells for tourists to visit like a museum.
We said this wouldn't happen. President Bush said it wouldn't happen. He stood in Jackson Square and said, "There is no way to imagine America without New Orleans." But it has been over three months since Hurricane Katrina struck and the city is in complete shambles.
There are many unanswered questions that will take years to work out, but one is make-or-break and needs to be dealt with immediately. It all boils down to the levee system. People will clear garbage, live in tents, work their fingers to the bone to reclaim homes and lives, but not if they don't believe they will be protected by more than patches to the same old system that failed during the deadly storm. Homeowners, businesses and insurance companies all need a commitment before they will stake their futures on the city.
At this moment the reconstruction is a rudderless ship. There is no effective leadership that we can identify. How many people could even name the president's liaison for the reconstruction effort, Donald Powell? Lawmakers need to understand that for New Orleans the words "pending in Congress" are a death warrant requiring no signature.
The rumbling from Washington that the proposed cost of better levees is too much has grown louder. Pretending we are going to do the necessary work eventually, while stalling until the next hurricane season is upon us, is dishonest and cowardly. Unless some clear, quick commitments are made, the displaced will have no choice but to sink roots in the alien communities where they landed.
The price tag for protection against a Category 5 hurricane, which would involve not just stronger and higher levees but also new drainage canals and environmental restoration, would very likely run to well over $32 billion. That is a lot of money. But that starting point represents just 1.2 percent of this year's estimated $2.6 trillion in federal spending, which actually overstates the case, since the cost would be spread over many years. And it is barely one-third the cost of the $95 billion in tax cuts passed just last week by the House of Representatives.
Total allocations for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the war on terror have topped $300 billion. All that money has been appropriated as the cost of protecting the nation from terrorist attacks. But what was the worst possible case we fought to prevent?
Losing a major American city.
"We'll not just rebuild, we'll build higher and better," President Bush said that night in September. Our feeling, strongly, is that he was right and should keep to his word. We in New York remember well what it was like for the country to rally around our city in a desperate hour. New York survived and has flourished. New Orleans can too.
Of course, New Orleans's local and state officials must do their part as well, and demonstrate the political and practical will to rebuild the city efficiently and responsibly. They must, as quickly as possible, produce a comprehensive plan for putting New Orleans back together. Which schools will be rebuilt and which will be absorbed? Which neighborhoods will be shored up? Where will the roads go? What about electricity and water lines? So far, local and state officials have been derelict at producing anything that comes close to a coherent plan. That is unacceptable.
The city must rise to the occasion. But it will not have that opportunity without the levees, and only the office of the president is strong enough to goad Congress to take swift action. Only his voice is loud enough to call people home and convince them that commitments will be met.
Maybe America does not want to rebuild New Orleans. Maybe we have decided that the deficits are too large and the money too scarce, and that it is better just to look the other way until the city withers and disappears. If that is truly the case, then it is incumbent on President Bush and Congress to admit it, and organize a real plan to help the dislocated residents resettle into new homes. The communities that opened their hearts to the Katrina refugees need to know that their short-term act of charity has turned into a permanent commitment.
If the rest of the nation has decided it is too expensive to give the people of New Orleans a chance at renewal, we have to tell them so. We must tell them we spent our rainy-day fund on a costly stalemate in Iraq, that we gave it away in tax cuts for wealthy families and shareholders. We must tell them America is too broke and too weak to rebuild one of its great cities.
Our nation would then look like a feeble giant indeed. But whether we admit it or not, this is our choice to make. We decide whether New Orleans lives or dies.
--New York Times, 11 December 2005
Friday, December 09, 2005
The Three Gayest Defining Gay Moments of Gayness
in My Gay Life of Gaiety
1. Sneaking into my mother's closet at age seven, dolling up in her slinkiest Sears nightgown and least sensible shoes (lime green wedges with two-inch heels), slathering on as much blush, lipstick, and eyeshadow as I could manage, throwing myself on her queen sized bed, and assuming a pose that was later copied for the cover of Affair of the Hearth (a romance novel set in 19th century Nebraska), only to be discovered by shocked, stunned, and more-than-a-little dismayed parents five minutes later. 2. Attempting my first heterosexual encounter (a) out of doors (b) in January (c) in the woods behind my house (d) with a mullet-sporting girl whom the French would describe as vachement moche (generous, given her bone structure) and whom I would, many years later, encounter at the window of a local fast-food restaurant, when she handed me my sausage bicuits and impossibly hot coffee and told me that she and her girlfriend Rhonda were soon moving to east Texas to start a horse-farm-slash-consciousness-raising-retreat for battered housewives. 3. Rushing home in the rain on Wednesday night to fuel up the generator and run 150-foot all-weather extension cords from the patio, through the bedroom window, down the hallway, into the living room so that, just in case the power grid went down again, my boyfriend and I would still be able to watch 2005's most important night of televisual faggotry: the season finale of America's Next Top Model and the season premiere of Project Runway. (Is it just me, or would the entire country like to see a tag-team oil-wrestling match between Miss J/Nigel Barker and hot bitch duo Tim Gunn/Daniel Franco?)
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
I may not be as artsy as some of my neighbors, but I'm not averse to snapping a few phonecam pics now and then. Here's a few shots of New Orleans quietly getting her groove back:
 
One of the worst things about living in New Orleans these days is that our usually green city is now various shades of brown: brown from the water-level lines that stretch across distinctly un-level house fronts; brown from dust and caked-on mud; and brown from dead/dying plants that couldn't handle the flood's standing water or that perished in the subsequent drought with no one around to water them.
The upside of that last part is that all those needy, whiny, pansy-ass plants I've spent years struggling to keep alive: they're all dead now. The only stuff that's still around is the hardy crap you just can't kill: ferns, philodendron, nandina, crape myrtle, buttloads of irises, and my personal favorite, sweet olive. In fact, some plants seems to have thrived: the angel's trumpet pictured above has grown from a few spindly twigs to take over most of my patio. (Don't worry, Jackie: I'm not makin' any cocktails with it.) If I just dig up the dead stuff, I'll be well on my way to a garden I can totally ignore.
She's been here for years, this lady. I don't remember her name. She's a performer on Royal Street, and she's remarkably untalented. She's got a gimmick, though: she dresses up like a 19th century floosie, sets up a Casio, and hammers out what sounds to be barrelhouse blues. She sings a little, too, in a growling kinda music hall way, but she only knows about every third word to any given song--not that they're real songs she sings, mind you. She's kinda mental, so she's probably just playing what she hears in her head.... Anyway, the point is that she's got the look and the sound down, even if she doesn't really know what she's doing. There's a blind clarinettist on Royal who pulls the same schtick: he can't play a real jazz tune to save his life, but he can squeal the high notes like Pete Fountain, so he gets a good sympathy tip from tourists. Anyway, I guess it's working for the pianolady, 'cause she's still here and still fat.
On my way to grab some coffee the other day, I looked up and saw an almost completely intact One Shell Square--not too shabby for a building that's rumored to be cased in highly unstable shalestone that allegedly erodes in heavy rain and is allegedly prone to come tumbling to earth during high winds....
Monday, December 05, 2005
Three photos having little or nothing to do with recent events
This is the general store my grandfather ran in Paulding, Mississippi--population 150 (saaaaa-lut!)--until the day he died. Like most childhood things, I remember it being much bigger and grander and not so run-down. I used to ride my tricycle up and down the main aisle, weigh myself on the public scale, sneak Cokes from the cooler. My brother and I would play in the cotton gin that used to stand behind it, then wander up the hill to visit my grandmother at the courthouse.
As you might guess from the first pic, I come from pretty humble origins. Our family cemetery is situated halfway between Paulding and Vossburg (i.e. truly in the middle of nowhere), about 20 yards off a poorly paved country road. A couple of times a year, my dad and I drive up to clean out the underbrush, and when I went home for my brother's wedding in October, we did just that. This gravestone used to be hidden behind a pine tree, but Katrina fixed that. It caught my attention for a couple of reasons--not least of all, its age. For a stone carved in 1862, it's remarkably well preserved, especially in comparison to the more recent ones around it. I also liked the inscription: "Sonnie Boy and Sweetie died in Jasper county, Miss, November 1862." The only troublesome thing is those names: I mean, maybe I'm going out on a limb here, but I'm guessing that "Sonnie Boy" and "Sweetie" weren't white folks. That, in turn, gives rise to about a billion questions, including, did they die together? How? Assuming they were black, could they have been lynched? Or, since 1862 was mid-Civil War, could they have been slaves who tried to escape northward? And what are they doing buried in my family's cemetery, when I've always been told that our family didn't own slaves?
On a much lighter note, this is my solution to the age-old dilemma of how to stuff a duvet back in its cover: I hold the duvet by its corners, burrow into the cover, stand up to make sure it's straight, then flop onto the bed and slink out. Last week, my boyfriend found it amusing enough to photograph.
Friday, December 02, 2005
December 1st is a pretty important date in my book. Unfortunately, between my day job--where things have become insanely busy, post-Katrina--and the show we're opening tonight--which is a different kind of insanity altogether--I was just too busy to post anything. Luckily, that hasn't always been the case.
|
|
