Day 872: Curs of the Ravenously Avaricious Pirate Society
January 16, 2008 - Filed Under culture-society-history, general, mardi gras, new orleans
Kathrine Cargo (of TOKIN) and John Hyman (of my very own subkrewe, C.R.A.P.S.) were on George Ingmire’s show on WWOZ this morning talking about the Krewe du Vieux parade that rolls this weekend. This weekend! Wasn’t it just Christmas and Twelfth Night?
The mother krewe theme is Krewe Du Vieux’s Magical Misery Tour and a number of subkrewes went to town coming up with clever twists on Beatles song and album titles. My favorites are Mama Roux’s We All Live In A Jello Shot Machine and Drips ‘n’ Discharges presents Sgt. Eddie’s Only Honkies Banned. My husband came up with I Am The WalMart for our subkrewe but we decided to buck the Beatle-themed trend and settled on C.R.A.P.S. Mutinies: Where’s Da Booty? We started out asking what in the name of Blackbeard happened to FEMA’s missing millions but that, in the way of all subkrewe themes and their execution, transmogrified into a rip on our mayor, No C. Um Ray Nagin, and his jump to a Dallas-bound vessel. C.R.A.P.S. has a tendency to change its acronym each year based on the theme so I came up with the title of this post (avaricious, yes, we are Craps-playing pirates after all and I love the word cur). Also bouncing around in me noggin’ is C. Ray Abdicate Power Soon.
Tonight is the Captains’ Dinner when we honor our King, Mr. Ronald Lewis of the Ninth Ward’s House of Dance and Feathers, and the captains of the seventeen subkrewes. Then, it’s downhill to parade day.
Many of us have worked very hard - through Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s, car wrecks, illnesses, surgeries, children, work-work and loads of other responsibilities - to bring this early, early, early parade to you this year. If you are in New Orleans this Saturday, you must come to this parade. (Bring the kids, they’re not the pure little cloistered nuns you think they are.) It looks like it will be cold outside, but at least you can bundle up while we run through the streets of the Bywater, Marigny and the Quarter in nothing short of skimpalicious.
Consider it your solemn duty to line the streets for Krewe du Vieux. Read the latest Le Monde de Merde, memorize the new time and route, come out to support the best parade in the world and kick off Mardi Gras season right! Don’t forget the ball; tickets are $25 each and available at Mardi Gras Zone, Louisiana Music Factory, Up In Smoke, Miss Claudia’s Vintage Clothing. Costumes are highly encouraged.
Laissez les bon temps rouler starting 6:30pm on Saturday, January 19th!
Day 702: For The Love Of Science
August 1, 2007 - Filed Under general
Reading a popular LiveScience article called Global Warming: How Do Scientists Know They’re Not Wrong?, with hope filling my heart, this paragraph stopped me in my tracks.
Contrary to popular parlance, science can never truly “prove” a theory. Science simply arrives at the best explanation of how the world works. Global warming can no more be “proven” than the theory of continental drift, the theory of evolution or the concept that germs carry diseases.
Back off, man, I’m a scientist! Hate to break it to you, but continental drift was disproven; we now understand such geological activity via a snazzy new concept known as plate tectonics. Evolution is not a theory, but a fact. I’ll leave the germ statement to a microbiologist.
Sigh, with friends to science like this, who needs creationists? I need a hug. Paging highly-educated Jersey boy, txyankee. Come in, txyankee!
Day 692: Yet Another “Women In The Workplace” Assessment
July 22, 2007 - Filed Under culture-society-history, general
So, what makes us different and better than our male counterparts (this time)? It’s still multitasking and, wait, what is this … emotionalism. [NYTimes article]
What intrinsic qualities do women have that give them a competitive edge over men? By an overwhelming margin, the trait they touted most was their multitasking expertise … They even turned a common dig against them, their supposed emotionalism, on its head, saying it is a manifestation of a compassionate nature that motivates employees, attracts customers and enables them to keep their priorities straight.
… A few respondents acknowledged that men seem to have innate advantages, like moving more quickly to put out workplace fires and paying more attention to the bottom line.
I love how these studies have no room for emotional and compassionate men, as well as no-nonsense, quick-as-lightning women who keep their eyes on the bottom line at all times.
In some sense, it probably explains why I constantly have five or more projects going, start crying and breathing into a paper bag three-quarters of the way to the finish, eventually put out fires, find out exactly how much everything costs, almost always do things for other people and get my work done anyway.
You know what, I realize that’s not female multi-tasking and emotionalism, it’s anyone’s work, stress and deadlines.
Day 664: Some Reassurance
June 24, 2007 - Filed Under family & friends, general
This post is a bit of navel-gazing that has nothing to do with New Orleans, politics, geoscience, copyright issues or travel. Ever since VatulBlog went from being a simple stump in my portion of electronic acreage to an über-public space, I’ve thought about starting another blog, a more personal one under an anonymous name that serves as online Dear Diary, but of a more private nature. Well, I do have one of those somewhere, but it now serves mostly as repository of quizzes, YouTube videos and conversations held within a select group of friends.
That is, however, the beauty of blogging, isn’t it? I don’t have to wear a Dolce & Gabbana suit and a ton of makeup to come to you with breaking news, analyses of New Orleans and scientific happenings, and internet roundups. By the same token, I’m not limited in any way by a holding company or publisher to speak only of certain ordained things. It is after all, heaven forfend, my blog. Subsumed, in a way, by the professionalism required to be a purveyor of often serious news, but still my blog.
What does this long preface lead up to? Yesterday, thanks to an online social networking site, I found an old friend from my Kuwaiti youth. Type-A and competitive youngsters, we didn’t always get along, but loved one another as kids do when they’ve known each other since kindergarten. Bad things happened to both of our families in 1990, we went our separate ways, and we never saw each other again … until I caught her grown-up face in a blurry picture, while surfing through friends’ friends lists. It brought back all kinds of memories and sixteen years of rumination.
There’s something I have come to realize in my years of reluctant adulthood: People are people. I don’t have to like all of them, and not one of them is obligated to like me — THIS IS OK. And that, yes, there are people who dislike me, but for each one who does, there are at least two dozen who have overwhelmingly positive or neutral feelings towards me. This is not a plea for “I like/love you” or “I despise you” comments, so don’t bother with them. Why not? It’s because no human is fully angel or demon; inter-personal relationships and attendant judgments are just not that black or white. There is no such thing as all love and all hate towards one person, and most of the time to our self-centered eyes, people just are. Coincidentally, D said something very profound to me yesterday, “No one is wholly a bitch, Maitri, they were being bitchy under those set of circumstances. This is why it’s best not to speak ill of anyone, for you will never know what they were going through at the time to prompt that awful behavior.” (I love this man, and his ability to be a sage and an impetuous sixteen-year-old at the same time.)
Thought I’d share.
Update: When discussing this topic with friends just a few hours ago, they said, “How could anyone not like you?” I rolled my eyes and said, “Very easily, it just depends on the set of circumstances.” Objectivity between friends is not guaranteed, hence the blog post.
Day 396: Love This Life, Though You’ll Never Know Why
September 28, 2006 - Filed Under family & friends, general
Ever since Katrina, the death of D’s mother a few months after that, and now with my grandmother’s passing, I’ve pondered the utter lemon that is life followed by death. What do I mean? You’re born, you do so much, make somewhat of a difference in your life, touch the lives of others, become a better or, at the least, older and experienced person, and then you die. Moksha, nirvana, karma, heaven and hell are all fine and dandy, but I want it and I want it now! You still don’t capisce? Follow along with what I wrote my friend, Joel, in reply to his condolences:
“You, of all people, being Jewish and terribly sensitive to these things, may recognize that it’s hard to observe the body’s decline. Those like you and me, steeped in the knowledge of our roots back to God, are so attached to family, stories, abilities and elders that, when they pass on, a living tenet of who you are, and I don’t mean a part of you, goes with them.
“My grandmother was so energetic, so talkative, so capable (crochet pieces she made me at the age of 90 with failing eyes sit here waiting to be framed) and so mighty. And the life graph plummeted in the last few months leading to her sudden death. Poof. Gone. Vanished.
“I can’t call after her with, ‘Wait, there are so many unanswered questions. Tell me more about Dad when he was a child. What did you like most about my Grandpa? What is your favorite color? Just talk to me some more.’ It’s so final, so stiflingly final, that even a download of her brain before death could not mirror the affection and affectations she infused in her stories. The way I sat at her feet and she rubbed the palm of my hand when imparting those tales, the pride I felt when she told me how much like my mother I look, the loving glances she gave my father … who records that? Where is the justice in the world losing that? Why are we made to love and attach, and equally fragile and mortal? Death is so bloody frustrating that way.”
Of course, as a Hindu and a Vedantin, my head-heart-soul complex understands impermanence. But, just because I get it doesn’t mean I have to like it. This is the portion of the program when I equally appreciate my attachment to people and yearn for my doctor brother’s clinical outlook on being and everythingness.
August 10, 2006 - Is it horrible that I don’t feel this sad when humans are killed? 1 comment #
July 11, 2006 - Today is one of those days I wish I weren’t in New Orleans. One thousand miles north of here, my mother goes into major surgery late this morning and will not emerge until early in the evening. It bites that I am her only daughter and only child who will not be there with her. Please think positive thoughts for my mama, InternetLand; she let her baby grow up to be a blogger. 3 comments #
With Eyes Closed
August 26, 2005 - Filed Under books, general
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With eyes closed You light up within You are blind stone Night after night I carve you We have become enormous |
Con los ojos cerrados Te iluminas por dentro Eres la piedra ciega Noche a noche te labro Nos volvemos inmensos |
“Con Los Ojos Cerrados: With Eyes Closed” by Octavio Paz
Thank you, Mimosa, for delving into my nebula and understanding that, even with the best and best-intentioned of us, the quest for the apex sometimes does lead to dead ends of High Fidelity that inspire pause. My gratitude for your Grande Fine Champagne in my half-full chalice of Minute Maid.
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