Today I drew part of a neighborhood that no longer exists ( Read more... )

While in New Orleans over the last two years, I have sought to appreciate and understand what I have had the opportunity to experience. More fried seafood than I thought was possible to consume has passed through my lips, and my hands have handled photos of literally every street in the French Quarter while sorting materials in an archive. From ( Read more... )

Saturday I did what I have not done in ages. I didn't get up, really, but spent the day lounging in bed, reading and napping. Breakfast, lunch, and tea-time were all passed reclining in dark, quiet comfort. When I finally rose, it was after sunset, to an apartment lit entirely by candlelight. After soaking a warm bath, soothed by sandalwood incense ( Read more... )

A week after my birthday, I moved into a different apartment, in the Riverbend area on South Carrollton Avenue. After a month living here, i can say that I am quite pleased with the quiet, pedestrian-friendly location with tree-lined streets, and my delightfully-detailed early twentieth century building. Once again, I have room and time to merely ( Read more... )

Some days I have a few moments to reflect as I drive across New Orleans. Usually I drive down my block of nineteenth and turn-of-the-century wooden houses, and turn left onto Louisa. Other days, well, I drive onward right past Piety, make an unplanned left onto Desire, and onto the relatively busy St. Claude to get out of my neighborhood, Bywater. ( Read more... )

Well, last week I decided that the only way I could sit through the televised wedding of Flight Lieutenant William Wales and Cathrine Middleton, Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, was to have a formal tea party. Frankly, as interesting as the display might be, I needed some reinforcements-- tea with sandwiches, pastries, fruit, and sherry-- to get it ( Read more... )

I was grateful to spend the Christmas holiday in San Diego, and see family and friends. However, mother nature has seemed to have a yen for history making. After experiencing literally two feet of rain in two weeks in New Orleans in December 2009 before flying to California, for this year's trip I had the lovely opportunity to experience the ( Read more... )

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For some reason, some motion pictures hold my attention and endear my affection more than others, for their celebration of the senses and living, most especially through cuisine. They tend to be foreign films or domestically produced ethnic cinema. Perhaps I appreciate how such themes unite living and culture and sheer joie de vivre--which might ( Read more... )

Recently, two different friends asked me for suggestions of motion pictures that they may wish to watch. Having been building up my queue of films to watch through my movie rental service, I had been thinking about what films had struck me as most salient or worth seeing again. Ten years out from getting my degree in Visual Arts Media, which ( Read more... )